Did Kingdom Hearts 3 "Ruin" Itself?
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- Опубліковано 8 лют 2022
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Thumbnail by Kinode, God of Little Images
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Music used (in order):
“Radiant Garden” from Kingdom Hearts III Re Mind (2020)
“Scala ad Caelum” from Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover (2017)
“Monstropolis Now” from Kingdom Hearts III (2019)
“Aqua (Dark Dive)” from Kingdom Hearts III
“Just Wondering” from Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories (2008)
“Sacred Distance” from Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance (2012)
“The Little Chef” from Kingdom Hearts III
“The Fun Fair” from Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance
“The Underworld” from Kingdom Hearts II (2005)
“Deep Anxiety” from Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix (2007)
“Stranded Beyond” from Kingdom Hearts III
“A Walk in Andante” from Kingdom Hearts II
“Piccolo Resto” from Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories
“Dearly Dreams” from Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep (2010)
“Cosmo Canyon” from Final Fantasy VII (1997)
“Merlin’s Magical House” from Kingdom Hearts (2002)
"A Pirate's Freedom" from Kingdom Hearts III
Footage from (in order):
Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix Trailer - E3 2014
Kingdom Hearts III Reveal Trailer - E3 2013
Kingdom Hearts (2002)
Kingdom Hearts III Together Trailer (2018)
Kingdom Hearts III Launch Commercial (2019)
Kingdom Hearts III Square Enix Showcase Trailer - E3 2018
Kingdom Hearts III “Don’t Think Twice” Trailer (2018)
Kingdom Hearts II (2005)
Kingdom Hearts III Pirates of the Caribbean Trailer - E3 2018
Kingdom Hearts III Big Hero 6 Trailer (2018)
Kingdom Hearts III Tangled Trailer - LUCCA 2018
Kingdom Hearts III Monsters, Inc. Trailer - D23 Expo Japan 2018
Kingdom Hearts III Trailer - Jump Festa 2016
Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance (2012)
Kingdom Hearts III (2019)
Kingdom Hearts III Opening Movie Trailer (2018)
Kingdom Hearts III Big Hero 6 Trailer - TGS 2018
Kingdom Hearts III Friend Edition Commercial (2018)
Kingdom Hearts III Trailer - E3 2015
Kingdom Hearts III Trailer - TGS 2015
Hercules (1997)
Kingdom Hearts III Toy Story Trailer - D23 2017
Kingdom Hearts III Frozen Trailer - E3 2018
Kingdom Hearts III Final Battle Trailer (2018)
Kingdom Hearts III Battle Edition Commercial (2018)
Kingdom Hearts III Winnie the Pooh Trailer (2018)
Kingdom Hearts Final Mix (2002)
Kingdom Hearts III Big Hero 6 Announcement (2015)
Kingdom Hearts III Orchestra Trailer (2017)
Kingdom Hearts Trailer - E3 2002
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Sora Reveal Trailer (2021)
Kingdom Hearts III Classic Kingdom Trailer (2018)
Kingdom Hearts III Re Mind Trailer #2 (2019)
Ratatouille (2007)
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep (2010)
Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories (2008)
Kingdom Hearts III Special Version Commercial (2019)
Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory (2020)
Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance Special Trailer (2012)
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories Commercial (2004)
Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance Trailer (2011)
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep Launch Trailer (2010)
Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix (2007)
Kingdom Hearts Commercial (2002)
Kingdom Hearts II Commercial (2006)
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days Commercial (2009)
Final Fantasy VII Remake Launch Trailer (2020) - Ігри
Fun fact: the vast majority of the footage I use in this video is from trailers. In the interest of further illustrating my point, any footage I did NOT explicitly pull from a trailer or commercial is marked by a smol Platinum Presto in the top left corner.
Oh yeah, this is big brain
The fact that the majority of a 28 minute video uses footage exclusively from promotional trailers is enough to prove your point.
*small not smol. You want us to take you seriously by making a spelling mistake on purpose because it's "a meme"?! No way.
@@SuperPlacido1 i actually don't give a shit if you in particular take me seriously.
@@SuperPlacido1 nobody cares
the way that they showed off the literal climax of the game for both kh3 and ff7r is wild to me why would you do that
Yea they really did that shit twice
@@thatoneblackdude3333 3rd and maybe 4th with NEO: The World Ends With You and possibly Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin (all coincidently having Nomura involved in them even if he didn’t direct).
They really did it twice and somehow didn't think twice
@Oliver's 50th Account for KH at least, Nomura edits/directs the trailers.
@Oliver's 50th Account bruh he said coincidence lol
Fun fact: due to the BBS trailer showing the beginning of Vanitas unmasking, people were able to figured out he looked like Sora by overlaying Sora's face.
That's a blast from the past. Myself and others on a site we were on did a fandub of the trailer back then (I played Terra x3) and I remember thinking "Y'know... that guy looks kinda like... nah."
The anti aqua trailer is what "ruined", or more accurately, soured,, my kh3 experience. Still loved the game, but theorizing and speculating on what happened to her, only for it to be basically nothing was a huge let down. I BIG agree with the main premise of this video: the kh original stuff shown in the trailers only mattered to the people who were already going to buy the game. I would have loved to see a lot these moments for the first time IN game.
I really agree on this. They should have dialed that down to zero on that. They could have tease it better when she was "Normal" Aqua facing something we the audience don't know yet.
Gives us a sense of all sorts of wheels are rolling in this game despite we are focused on sora on his fantastic disney adventures.
Dark Aqua was pretty much spoiled in the 0.2 tech demo game; but yeah they should have kept it much more vague and definitely not shown her battle. Maybe instead show her and the demon tide and pretend she was fighting alongside you, but… even that fakeout could have been too much. We knew she would be in the game and we knew she had some darkness problem, revealing what those problems are was too much.
It certainly didn't help that, around that same time, the most tangible thing we had to tide ourselves with waiting for III besides trailers was 0.2, which ended on this affirming moment after several hours' worth of despair. When the Frozen trailer came out, it seemed as though that sense of hopeful preservation meant nothing, which stung even worse when III finally came out and we actually saw that not only was Anti-Aqua just nothing, but Aqua herself had no follow-through until Re:Mind.
@@jackcharlotte25 0.2 being such a well crafted story probably shot kh3 in the foot a bit too... it set expectations for the BBS trio in kh3 that just weren't even present until the endgame. Making us wait to even see aqua/ven/terra until the endgame after all that hype just felt painfull
I call her "Emoqua"
"There's so many of them!" Sora says looking at the list and having flashbacks to the Battle of 1000 Trailers
I followed KH2 prerelease very closely since I was a kid with a ton of free time. They were just as guilty of this stuff back then. One by one each world and Org member was revealed in magazines and trailers. Most of us figured out who DiZ, Xemnas, Roxas and the Nobodies were before they were revealed. The difference is we still had to use some imagination with magazine scans and silent trailers instead of these blowout reveals.
KH1 was the first game i beat without any help, i begged my parents to get 2 when it came out
KH1 also taught me not to judge a game before i played it as i thought i'd hate or at best wouldn't care for it. how wrong was i.
Ah man, I remember seeing Japanese screenshots on Yahoo! of Sora, Donald, and Goofy piled on top of each other with Auron smirking. I took it as this new bad guy that just comes in, wipes the floor with party, and laughs about it. I remember being so upset about it. (I knew nothing about Final Fantasy X or any Final Fantasy for that matter back then, I assumed Cloud and the others were just original KH characters.
the david gallagher interview spoiled riku's whole existence lol
I'm glad UA-cam wasn't a thing for me prior to the release of KH2. I played 1 and 2 completely blind and the experience was better for it.
a point i'd like to add: square enix is stuck in a trailer mindset that hasn't worked since around 2010. i would actually argue that the amount shown in some of these trailers would be fine...back when trailers were almost exclusively watched on television and when there wasn't an entire cottage industry dedicated pulling apart video game trailers on websites like youtube. when these trailers were being seen on tv or via shitty dial-up internet, you didn't catch all the split second moments. you saw details and forgot about them until later. now you can rewatch trailers with ease and find videos dissecting every moment of them - it's a fundamentally different experience and it means trailers have to thread a tricky needle. they have to show enough to cultivate interest and theories, but not so much that they destroy any and all intrigue their story has. it's a difficult task, for sure, but that's their job and they didn't do well at it with this game.
it's a weird space for gaming (and other mediums, tbh) to be in with regards to marketing. you used to think about how an individual person was going to react to a trailer/commercial. now they have to think about content creators and entire communities. they have to think about people on twitter pausing the trailer and taking a screenshot of a moment that's only up for three seconds. some companies have pivoted better than others when it comes to this change in how people interact with their media...i'll leave it at that.
anyway, thanks for the video. it's an interesting conversation even if it's something we'll never concretely know the answer to. i'm looking forward (sort of) to how they market the next chapter of the series with all this in mind!
Yeah, once I have played and completed the next Kingdom Hearts game, I will be very curious to see what they did with the trailers.
so the braindead talking head horde are at fault for killing trailers as a medium? that's admission that if you aren't crazy obsessed with every morsel of detail about an IP then the trailers work just fine. maybe there is a wrong way to consume art
@Malicia III congratulations on shaming people for being excited for things
Trailers were posted on UA-cam in 2010 so people were still able to dissect them back then
It certainly didn't help that a lot of the moments teased in the trailers, like Aqua getting Norted, had fans coming up with their own cool and interesting interpretations of what could be happening (That was the purpose of the trailers, to be fair). And they ended up going nowhere.
As if, apart from what was shown in the trailers, there wasn't much else to see.
Like when they teased roxas coming back being a way bigger process with sora having to deal with his own darkness or make use of the data realm. Another huge nothing in the main game
Part of what made KH1 and 2 so great and memorable as a kid was knowing absolutely nothing going into either of them and just getting blown away by everything. It was so hard to avoid the hype of kh3 tho and it definitely soured a lot for me personally.
I definitely remember being upset at the fact that the final battle trailer was at the end of the game. They definitely spoiled the last 1/3rd and when the credits rolled I was like man I wish there was just MORE
Which we technically did get
that is why I stopped watching trailers after the first few trailers
@@Slater2113 Sorry I don't buy DLC. If it's not included in the main game, it's not worth it. This notion that DLC is about finalizing a game, is all monetization bullshit. I remember a time when I bought a game and all DLC was, was extra content.
Jo Jo I hot 🔥 🔥 h
Jo Jo I hot 🔥 🔥 hh
Def one of the people who watched all the trailers and still loved the game! But I’ll admit, when I got to the final portion of the game, I was kind of under the impression I’d only hit the halfway point, because there had to be so much more than what the trailers showed, right?! :|
When I realized that was not the case, I was a little disappointed, but it didn’t take away from all the positives of the game. The further and further we get away from those trailers and I’m able to just play the game knowing what it is, the more I appreciate it.
And yeah, it’s def a Square thing. After KH3’s trailer spoil show, I’d been avoiding trailers for squeenix games for the most part. Always been a huge fan of The World Ends with You, so when they announced the sequel, NEO, I only watched the first few trailers and then actively avoided all other trailers/coverage, which turned out to be the right call, cause the trailers spoil really late game plot points and bosses.
Props to everyone who has the willpower to avoid trailers. If kh4 starts showing trailers five years before the game comes out I will probably break. Can't imagine not loving the games tho
kh2 trailer Is Worse as kh3
that Trailer spoilers way more as kh3 did
i see that Trailer Back then
and knew that kh3 Trailer have spoilers
square Trailer are full of spoilers thats With final Fantasy the Same
thats also Not kh3 faults more a square fault
TBH, I was really shocked when I got to that point at the end where everyone was getting clapped, I figured it would have been the “midway” point to go back to the worlds and complete stories to get a better second chance at the final battle, just like KH2 and 1 had you returning to old worlds to complete their stories. Really made KH3 feel like they were just rushing to get the story finished.
At least it was fun to play though. Damn fun.
@@p3k41 that's also because kh3 has terrible pacing. Sora does absolutely nothing in the Disney worlds then they rush all the actual story at the end. 80% pure filler. Still logged 100 hours tho
They need to get whoever does the trailers for Creative Business Unit III to do them for everything else.
For me, it's both the overflow of trailers AND a genuine weakness with the plot. I've been doing a lot of thinking recently about pacing in game plots. Shenmue and Kingdom Hearts both have what I consider genuine pacing issues as a series. They try to deliver on a scale they didn't have the time to set up.
The thing that rings so hollow about the ending section of KHIII for me is that we're simultaneously getting conclusions for literally around 12 different plotlines, and some of those barely had presence in their own games. We got literally the fastest route between point A and B without any time to absorb it because there wasn't enough time.
The one side plotline that got the amount of time and thought it needed was Aqua in the world of darkness and her PTSD... and THAT'S THE ONE PLOTLINE THEY DROPPED ALMOST IMMEDIATELY.
It felt like Nomura really wanted everyone to get their happy endings and was afraid to leave any loose ends for the imaginations of his fans, and by doing so, he made sure that no one got as much time in the limelight as they needed for it to feel as weighty as possible. Shion coming back inevitably leads up to... being an NPC in a single boss battle.
...and where the trailers REALLY didn't help is that they gave the impression that some things WOULD be given more thought and time. Exactly like this video says. The sting of a poorly paced finale hurts all the more when it's hyped up and made to look like it's bigger than it is.
There is some hypothetical version of the story of KH3 where they were able to include everything, but it would have been required a more persistent plot. The game wastes a lot of time with random organization members messing with the crew in Disney worlds by showing up, saying something spooky, and then leaving. All of that "darkness darkness hearts darkness" talk could have been used to developed the upcoming conflict in a deeper way.
The game is trying to resolve so much at once in the last 25% of the game.
@@ZodiacEntertainment2 I'm actually not so sure as that would be a game with almost no Disney stuff, and that would lose Square the Disney contract. But also, tell what you can within the time you have. I think 3 could've done way better narratively if Nomura saved some character conclusions for the next arc.
@@DairunCates Maybe not everyone will agree with me but I think if they put the saving Aqua part halfway through the game, concluded a few more plot points near and at the end, and then saved the remaining ones not covered for the next game(s), the story pacing might have been a bit better.
This, so much.
I have serious issues with articulating what the heck made me so angry with Kingdom Hearts 3, but every so often I stumble across a comment or video where it gives me enough context to explain another piece.
The main entries in Kingdom Hearts do have pacing issues, but they generally still manage to foreshadow and build up certain plot points every few worlds throughout each game - think Riku's slide into darkness in 1, him and Sora meeting in 2, the process of finding King Mickey in both, figuring out who Ansem is (twice) or what Organisation XIII's plan and goals are. Even background details like what's going on with Namine in KH2 is something an attentive player can keep rough track of. It lets people build anticipation for one of the things Kingdom Hearts really excels at: having satisfying pay-offs near the end with lots of time dedicated to letting those scenes hit emotionally when they're wrapping these arcs up.
Even if uneven pacing isn't new, they spoiled so much of it in an age where spoilers are hard not to see even when deliberately avoiding them, and Kingdom Hearts 3 didn't hit the same marks as the past main entries by waiting to develop any of this until the last quarter (or less for some players) of the game and not giving any of it enough room to breathe.
I love Kingdom Hearts to bits, but to say it didn't have the time to set up its scale is just wrong. It had like a dozen full length JRPGs.
If they'd had the vision or skill to do their scale justice, they would have absolutely NOT been strapped for time.
I definitely have learned to avoid trailers. Neo: The World Ends With You was ruined by its trailers which I had forgotten about thankfully.
For real man, thank you for letting me know that NEO TWEWY's trailers ruin the game -- it's been on my list for a while and I'm glad to know I was right in avoiding trailers for it. Here's hoping I can go in blind when I play it!
@@DetectiveGrey Definitely do! The game was my favourite for 2021 and I reckon not being able to remember the trailer really helped!
For having played the game, I can definitely say the Trailers did not ruin the game at all. Neo trailer was well handled compared to KH3 trailers
@@Nhoadkoko that's also a relief to hear, one of the things I hate is when stuff like UA-cam thumbnails and titles end up spoiling stuff for me, so I've been trying to avoid getting any of it into the algorithm for me -- example, I got super spoiled on a lot of the secret bosses in Yakuza 7 because people kept posting ALL CAPS titles for no damage runs like goddamn man you really gotta?
@@DetectiveGrey I agree. I personally got spoiled quite often because of thumbnails and titles.
Trailers too might contain a lot of spoilers if bad handled.
But for Neo rest assured. There's no spoilers in it, and what it seems to be a spoiler is actually not. I personally was surprised myself when I got to see the scenes from the trailers in the real game ^^
I remember pre-ordering this game and being so hype for it. I bought the ultimate edition and inside was this book filled with concept art and a small album filled with memories over the course of the journey. On the last page Nomura wrote a small letter to the fans thanking for the support over the years. However the last few lines of that letter really stood out to me as I finished the game. He said that that he wasn't sure how to end the story and rewrote the ending to the game three times. I hate to say this but it shows.
And then it wasn't even the ending.
I just remember the point the sound effects weren't added, so the audio effects were awkward as hell to listen to during the commercials themselves. Just the voice acting and music. Something about that just felt so off and incomplete, which I get that it took forever for the game to come out, but I felt like they should've figured all that out first even if just for those cutscenes.
I noticed this with a lot of anime style games from Japan for some reason. The sound mixing sucks like the music and fx will be wayy quieter than the voices and the voices aren't mixed into the space so they sound like somebody speaking into a mic right next to your ear
yee the reveal of Roxas in the KBG would have been 100x more impactful if i didn't know about it in advance. I mean i kinda knew it would happen but i didn't KNOW know
What is KBG
@@Xpwnxage Keyblade Graveyard
I didn’t know the FF7 remake trailer spoiled THAT moment- what in the heck is up with these companies choosing to ruin some AMAZING twists and turns
I remember seeing that scene in my play through and I was aghast. I sat there breathless the entire scene and I don’t think I would’ve been the same being spoiled on it in a trailer.
It's not companies, it's just Square Enix. Over and over again. SqEnix has become a joke with Nomura in the top spot.
Apparently, there was a recent interview with some of the FF7 Remake/Rebirth developers, and their justification for trailers with spoilers was basically "just because you know something might happen, what matters is the context, so as long as those moments are shown without context it will be cool to go 'So that's why this moment happens and what it means' when you play the game yourself."
No idea if this is a Japanese game dev thing, a Square Enix thing, or a Nomura and pals thing, but I personally really don't like it either.
It was ruined the moment they switched to a new engine and abandoned the old models (with the exception for flashbacks which I give credit to).
Fun Fact: so I used to work at a trailer editing house. I learned that production companies don't typically make the trailers for their films. Like, Spielberg didn't have a hand in making the trailers for Indiana Jones. So, it's safe to assume Square-Enix, a game creating and distribution company, hired a marketing firm/trailer house to create their trailers with Square-Enix providing briefs and criticism. So there's ALWAYS some disconnect between creator and creation's marketing. The point I'm making is that trailers are always made to hit every single denominator, usually revealing plot points, characters, and more. Japanese trailers in particular don't care to show story as much as style for their pieces- an extension of their viewpoints on media in general. So it will feel like a jumbled mess, shoving stuff in the trailer to grab anyone's attention.
At 24 years old, I only discovered (and fell totally in love with) Kingdom Hearts this last august. I was a Nintendo kid growing up and had never even heard of the series until I found it thanks to the UA-cam Algorithm. So I was in the weird place of knowing The Plot before playing the games. I’m actually just about to start playing 3 for the first time and I’m so excited. But I can say it does make me a little sad that I didn’t get that novel naive experience with these games, which is why I’m so unbelievably excited for the next phase. I’m going to do my best to watch maybe one or two trailers and then avoid all promotional content if I can. I really want that raw, magical experience. Like you said Pat, you only get it once! Here’s to kh having a long, bright future and lots of greatness to come. I can’t wait to be in it right alongside everyone else :)
And we’re all excited to have you join us for the ride :D
Please, try to avoid the trailers, i also will try to have a more pure experience
Same i already knew the plot when i satrted playing kh in 2019, and i still cried several times😭😭
You cant know the plot of KH without playing it.
I played every game multiple times and still get lost in some plot things 😅
Welcome to the rollercoaster, pal. You're never getting off.
I have aways been an "avoiding trailers" person, everyone just kept calling me weird for avoiding trailers for shit I wanna watch, but like... if you already know you're going to see it, why watch trailers that spoil stuff?! you, my man, perfectly summed up my thoughts on trailers and how it can ruin an experience and for this I thank you
I've been anticipating Elden Ring since it was announced. So I avoided *everything* about it. Every piece of media, every trailer, every video.
And I'm really glad I did because there's so much about it that's surprising me.
Because part of the fun of trailers is getting to pick apart the small details and theory craft about what's going to happen. So long as you keep your expectations managed, there shouldn't be any problem. As long as its not something like KH3 where the trailers just spoil everything.
i kept saying "the reason they are showing me so much is theres still so much more" but i found myself constantly saying "that was from the trailer", especially in the keyblade graveyard
Pat using the kh pause and I pause sound to do a quick oh by the way thing is adorable
I ate every trailer until thoroughly digested (in part because i'm an admin on the french wiki and had to stay up to date, but lbr i would have done it anyway and have done it since the kh2 trailer days) and wasn't disappointed by the game at all. TBH the vanitas trailer really rekindled my love for the series as a whole and got me involved in the fandom (especially writing fanfiction, which i hadn't done for KH before) when I had stayed on the far edge until then, so I have a pretty positive outlook on the whole experience on a personal level.
That said, I am also firmly cynical when it comes to trailers, where I won't make a bit of assumption beyond what's actually shown, and I'm also averse to theorizing and speculating, which I think is what led most people to overhyping themselves and being disappointed. So I realize my outlook is very much a me thing.
But I don't really agree with the notion that they showed too much. Like, yes, if you look back at the trailers after playing the game and knowing the context of these scenes, it seems like a lot, but having seen every trailer as they came out, I can with 100% confidence say that the scenes still felt fresh once I saw them in the game because I now had the context. It seems to me a lot of the people who say the trailers spoiled too much of the game are, in fact, people who avoided trailers because they thought there would be spoilers and then looked back at them with the context of having already played the game. Which strikes me as an approach that leads to huge confirmation bias.
Minor nitpick while I'm already writing a wall of text: Dark Baymax was shown (in concept art) way back when they first announced BH6 so it feels unfair to throw it in the list of things the TGS 2018 trailer spoiled :)
19:42 that midway turnaround took out my knees and shook me down for 5000 munny and a struggle crystal.
Yeah this definitely wasn't just hindsight, I specifically made sure not to watch the final battle trailer because so much stuff had already been shown in past trailers
Same!!!
I've always been good about avoiding hype and buildup, beyond theory speculation, because I like going into things with no expectations. I wouldn't say that KH3 "ruined" itself, but teasing the player with hints of lore and story progression and loading the rest of the game up with basically filler did get old. And I'm saying this as someone who's been playing the series for 20 years, I'd like to know what happens before I croak.
I might as well give my perspective on the trailer release here:
I remember being intrigued by KH3 and the series around the time the D23 Monsters, Inc. trailer, as well as catching a glimpse of the Toy Story trailer; this was at a time when I did not have a PS4 and the only means of enjoying KH at the time was story summaries and trying to play the original CoM on an emulator. I ended up watching every trailer after that.
Thankfully at the end of 2018 I got a PS4 and played through the series (at least most of the games/movies). I even remember when the cutscenes were leaking out before the game came out. After beating KH3, I was not disappointed by it and even had it as my 2nd favorite in the series (KH2 was my favorite at that point). Currently I plan on replaying the whole series to have a general opinion on the entire series.
I agree that the pre-release trailers affected the game badly in hindsight, but it was something that didn't bother me and I'm glad KH MoM didn't have as many trailers (at least, I don't remember that happening). Overall, this was a well-edited video that was a good look at the trailers.
I was in a really lucky/weird position when 3 came out. At the time I was really just a casual fan and didn’t even understand half of the shit that was going on. When COVID started I decided to play the games again and actually play the side games. I really fell in love with the series again and have an appreciation for the games that I didn’t have on my initial play through. KH3 is not my favorite but I still like it a lot and getting to see all these characters with an actual understanding for the first time made all of their reveals great. Vanitas showing up in the monsters inc world is one of my favorite moments in the series now.
I hadn’t watched a lot of trailers and was really suprised and happy with the game so do think having a lot less info made the story land a way better experience
same didnt watch any trailer and really enjoyed the game
Ya know, when you mention that the Aquanort scene seemed like it was made purely for trailer bait, you could say the same about a few of the big trailer reveals. The scene between Vanitas and Sora/Ventus, in game we get the silly Yeetus Vanitas scene, doesn't really lead to anything. The "nEw sEvEn LiGhTs", which also amounted to nothing even though the trailer made us think we'd be getting another 7 princesses to save. Luxord and the Black Box, with Jack reacting like he knows about THE Black Box. Turns out it was Davey Jone's chest and we never actually find out what's in the Black Box. There's probably more examples but the more I think about it, the more I realize that some of the weakest moments in KH3 it's as if they were just included to be trailer bait. My problem with the story isn't necessarily that there's too many plot points, that's a norm in Kingdom Hearts, it's that the few plot points they threw in there, don't amount to anything other than sounding good in a trailer.
Granted I still had a great time with the game when it came out, even from being spoiled by all the trailers. But it's that aftertaste of "huh, that thing I was speculating about didn't really go anywhere" that left this empty feeling.
Yeah. It's like a trailer for a comedy movie that looks great, so you're like 'wow this movie will be amazing if all of it is like this' but then you watch it and realize every single remotely funny part was shown in full in the trailer. Except here it's even worse because most of it was trailer bait and the actual game didn't really go anywhere with it...I honestly wonder if these bait scenes were made BEFORE the story was even finalized just so they could have more promotional material because the game was taking so long to release
@@LilacMonarch I wouldn't doubt it. Sometimes I even go the "MatPat Frozen Game Theory" route and wonder if Nomura had all these cool ideas he wanted to do with the game, but Disney and Pixar laid the ban hammer on him and made him change more than just the Frozen level everyone seems focused on. Obviously there's not as much evidence for that, but speaking of comedy, a lot of moments in KH3 play out like its a comedy routine. I think Nomura wanted some dark and badass stuff to happen throughout the game, but Disney and Pixar was like "Nah we're not working with you unless you make Woody, Sully and Jack look like complete badasses and make your villains look like complete and utter jokes".
The Baymax moment might've been the darkest Disney moment in the game, with Young Riku being relentlessly cruel and the idea of screwing with Baymax's code and making him evil, that was kind of a ballsy thing to do. It almost felt like a different game as far as the tone goes. Had there been more moments like that allowed, the game could've gone somewhere pretty dark and much more interesting. But I think this time around because of how big Disney and Pixar's reputations are, they were pretty strict about what was and wasn't allowed outside of just Frozen.
@@nervousgreg Disney doesn't really interfere with how the main story is written. Nomura was happy with how the script had more comedic elements, he talked about it in interviews.
@@AudoPlay Huh, I guess Nomura is just losing his edge then. I mean granted the comedic moments are hilarious, but it's just crazy that the trailers made it look like everything was gonna be much darker only for a lot of those trailer bait moments to turn into a Looney Tunes cartoon.
@@AudoPlay While kind of on the subject, I know after MatPat's theory about Frozen that a lot of people think the Let It Go segment in Frozen was something Disney demanded outright, but I remember before Frozen was even revealed that there were rumors Nomura wanted the Frozen world to be completely music based like Atlantica, so it was his idea from the start to have Let It Go in there. Which honestly I didn't mind cause I'm one of those schmucks that loves that song lol.
Square Enix tends to "ruin" every single game they release (it's a dramatic way to put it and an exaggeration, but you know), at least in recent years, purely because of how many spoilers they put in every single trailer. I never watch the "final trailer" of SE games anymore because they tend to just show... everything. I watched the final trailer of Strangers of Paradise because I didn't care about it much and I feel like I've played the game already.
Ff7 remake is the worst offenders it has a trailer that pretty much gives the whole game away.
They try to pander. Making games more accessible to a wider audience does not equate to a *better* game experience. I agree with you.
I remember the day that anti-aqua trailer came out so well. All my friends who cared about KH had ideas on how she got that way, and what it would mean. While I knew for a fact that that scene was just trailer bait. I could feel that shit coming from a mile away. And it kinda soured my mood on even getting KH3. That trailer alone made me feel like the BBS cast wouldn't actually get to do much. And I was sadly right about a lot of my predictions. No one really got to do anything outside of Sora, and that really sucks when 3 was the wrap up for a lot of characters story's.
As one of the rare people who agrees with you that 1 is the best and 3 is slightly better than 2, this should be interesting. That being said at 26 I almost feel too old for this discourse.
i too feel the crushing weight of my own age every time I speak of Kingdom Hearts
KH1 has the atmosphere. It's like Danganronpa 1 or Persona 1. It's other worldly.
KH1 nails the aesthetic
KH2 nails the spectacle
KH3 nails the looming feeling of a finale
Always the best videos!!!! KH content is so good and I am hope your channel continues to grow!
Yup, I 100% agree. Granted, this was not something I’d ever given any thought to, but you’re absolutely right. I’m one of the “only played the numbered titles “ crowd, but I did my best to keep up with the story in between releases, and so I knew who most of the characters being revealed were. And I too got to a point where I decided “ok, enough is enough with these goddamn trailers, if I keep watching them there won’t be any game left for me to enjoy when it actually comes out.”
So yeah. Totally agree. As always, thanks for your time and effort, always makes me happy to see your stuff pop up on my feed. Your compilation videos are a big inspiration for the content I’m working on for my fledgling channel.
For my experience with the trailers, I stopped pretty much after the release date announcement. I also watched the pirates trailer, but that was pretty much it. I missed a couple of the smaller ones, but I didn’t really know how lucky I was to duck out right then because that big hero 6 one was so bad.
I didn't see many trailers, but was still disappointed with it. I haven't played BBS or 3D yet, but had watched lets plays of them. I'm just not into the new plot stuff with the time travel and MoM people. I also don't like stories where characters miraculously come back from the dead or every single person lives happily ever after. It just feels like a fanfic to me. My favorite part was when Sora disappears at the end, but even then, I knew he wasn't actually gone.
Uuuh, you are a bit late to be complaining about time travel, you can blame 3D for that. And MoM and his Foretellers are barely in the game, they are literally only setup and hype for the next game, how could that have ruined your experience?
"I also don't like stories where characters miraculously come back from the dead or every single person lives happily ever after" - Well, you got into the wrong series then.
Yeah, as much as i am not a fan of characters being revied for the sake of being there this isn't the kind of series to leave most people dead, pretty easy to forsee when sora is suddenly brought back by a hug in kh1
If you haven't played BBS, I'd say you're missing out. Obviously, it sets up the characters of Aqua, Terra, and Ventus, as well as the arguably new series antagonist Xehanort. It introduces the form change mechanic. It also has some Disney worlds that are reasonably polished.
I know watching a let's play feels like experiencing the story, but there's no greater sense of triumph than when you finally beat those stinking final bosses yourself after 12 tries!
@@c0mplex_Ale ikr? isn’t characters coming back out of nowhere and everyone living happily ever after most of what happens in disney movies? lol
@@megabyte01 Nah, I’d rather not struggle with the shitty unbalanced bossfights
Man, you're super right. Really interesting video. I was in the camp that watched the final battle trailer and was like "yo... if they're showing THIS, they must have some crazy stuff in store for the full release." ...And then they didn't, at least relative to what was shown in trailers. As a result, I was also kind of in the "KH3 was a wAsTe oF eFfOrT" camp for a few months post-release as well. Then I played through the game another 4-ish times and now I love it to death, it's probably my favourite in the series now, not to even MENTION ReMind. Anyways, to mention ReMind, it has a crazy case of this squenix marketing strategy too. We get Yozora in the final world and "I've been having these weird thoughts lately" in TRAILERS.
Another Square game that came that came out recently, NEO TWEWY, probably has this problem worse than anything. In that game's final trailer, we basically get the reveal for a twist that only exists BECAUSE of other prerelease material, almost every big moment in the finale of the game, and neo's equivalent to 3's roxas reveal. If I had watched that trailer before playing neo, I might not have even bought it (which, in hindsight, might not have been a bad thing.)
This kind of 'wanting to know everything going in' attitude was probably at an all time high a couple months ago with spider-man. It was essentially an open secret that the other live action spider-men would be in the movie, but I kept seeing people say that they hoped they would reveal that shit in a TRAILER. I honestly can't understand how that would be satisfying on any level.
Finally, "current square marketing would show ansem in the kh1 trailers" is a joke I've made like 800 times, BUT THEY ACTUALLY DID IT??! Maybe every Square marketing team has some immense grudge against the devs. That's the only explanation for this, I swear.
Your theory makes a lot of sense! The new cutscenes in ReMind were a lot more satisfying because I had no idea what to expect. Looking back, I never watched any KH trailers either, except for KH1, which is a game I'd argue you could have never spoiled yourself no matter what you saw from trailers back then. But because of general "KH3 hype" it was different and we all consumed trailers, and I think that's why the main game story felt underwhelming. It's like getting spoiled that S kills D, sure you don't have any context, but you've ruined the surprise. Story games need a level of surprise to function as stories.
psst you might wanna spoiler tag the thing about snape jic
@@Nixahma ahh you're right, I changed it to hide the spoiler!
I'm one of the (probably) rare ones who saw every trailer and genuinely loved the game.
However, two of my internet friends, one a hardcore fan and one a casual one, both did the same and found the game really disappointing.
I liked kh3, but the lack of an interesting hub world you could return to for middle section story and such was what made kh3 a little disappointing. Plus the none Disney story didn’t matter until the final world, and was super weird in the last world. Still enjoyed it overall, I don’t think the trailers are what lead to anything feeling disappointing though.
congrats for the 100 patrons dude :)
I literally didn't get into the series into a few weeks after KH3 came out so I was plenty happy with it
I'm at the point with games where I'll watch the first couple trailers and nothing else, kh3 and ff7r really got me. That's for every company, not just square. Did that for tales of arise and enjoyed the game more than I think I would've otherwise.
I'm the kind who was obsessed enough with this serie to have watched every trailers and tried to think through them way too much, and while I stilled loved the game... Yeah they showed way too much.
And it's definitely not new. There was the same problem with FF XV where a big part of the marketing was showing events that took place in the last chapter of the game, which was dumb, and would have meant just, so much more if not spoiled!
I really hope they get better at this for the next games, though considering what you said about 7 Remake... Yeah might not happen soon...
SqEnix is like a show that lost its protagonist and is only operating on side characters now.
I've been looking for a comprehensive video about this since I finished KH3. I only watched up to the Big hero 6 announcement trailer and avoided things as much as possible (but, like you a lot was unavoidable like world, aqua etc) and I am so so glad I did. I went back and watched the trailers after and was BAFFLED by how much they showed. to each their own but i feel i did myself a major favour there.
It was really nice to go back and watch peoples trailer reactions though and see people cry over toy story, monsters inc etc. The passion everyone has is so beautiful, but i wonder if it did ruin the experience for them as im sure it would have personally for me.
Great extensive video as always, Pat!
Hey pat I wanted to answer a question that you had in one of your other videos. So in your kh1 compendium video you asked why using gravity on all the bell heartless enemies gave you extra tech points, well I think that was to make a joke of some sort. This is because using gravity on any heartless makes them flat so using it on these musical heartless turns them into “flat” notes thus the extra points. Fun facts also love your videos!
jesus that's next level...i love that if true
Seems odd from a Japanese game. That I know of, "flat" in music having the same word as "flat" like a pancake is an English thing.
All in all I actually agree with this video. When you're given too much information about something ahead of time it can ruin the experience and, by extension, make you think less of something. I liked Kingdom Hearts III, but not only had I not seen most of the trailers, but I also hadn't played most of the games and watched a 2 and a half hour major plot point explaination that gave me enough info to know what was happening in the games(I've played/watched all but Dream Drop since then, and I only had Dream Drop on hold until I finished The World Ends With You because I knew characters from that would be in it and didn't want any potential spoilers, but I beat that a little over a week ago so Dream Drops coming soon) so I honestly had a lot more intrigue with many characters and only got to know them from KHIII at first and what little info I had been given from the video I watched. I thought a lot of what was done with the characters, even the ones I didn't know well, were amazingly done, especially after subsequent playthroughs. I'm actually planning on playing through everything in KHIII proper and Re:Mind once I finish DDD to see how it hits now that I've had time to connect more with a lot of the characters. The games already in my Top 10 so idk if I can even enjoy it more, but who knows, maybe it'll find it's way into Top 5 now.
Back to my original point though, I actually had Toxic fans spoil all of Attack on Titan for me and it kind of ruined my own experience of it and made what could have been an 8 if no one said anything look like a 3. Everyone calling it perfect didn't help either.
Thank you. I know it was kind of a footnote at the end, but excessive praise can definitely also hurt perception. I feel like this happened to me with Xenoblade. Everyone says it's amazing and the best rpg ever, and it's good, but I feel like I don't quite appreciate it much when I'm told it has to be "the best thing ever." Like I don't know of I would call it the best, it's good, great even, but the best just has this unattainably high status. I feel like I'm just judging it unfairly, and I kind of want to give it a fair shake, but at the same time it's a reeeally long game, and I think some aspects just don't get with me.
@@thesuperMasterSword This. Exactly this. It's almost like you've been given this perception of expecting something better in your head and when the real thing doesn't live up to that it just makes it look worse and you wanna try be fair, but at the same time it's really moreso the toxic fans telling you have great it is fault for overhyping it to begin with. I have another friend who had it happen with Persona 5.
Really, you should just be honest with people about how good something actually is, and past that sometimes some people aren't into the same things as you. Like for video games I care more about gameplay and story than graphics, but there are some people who only care about Graphics and while I think that's objectively incorrect, I'm not gonna argue what someone else's preference is.
Have a feeling a lot of people are gonna make comments that are less about the context in this video and more just knee-jerk reactions based on that title...
And on a minor note, I'll totally vouch for those post-DDD days, how speculating on who the 13 Seekers of Darkness were was a big deal in discussion circles. At least for me.
Just today i discovered your channel. And you just uploaded a new video. Lucky me. I recently started to replay all kingdom hearts games.
I enjoy your kingdom hearts videos. Hope you see this, have a nice day :)
"Hopefully we can still hold hands, just at a distance". Sick burn🔥.
I had no idea the trailers for the other games were like 3's. I guess I was lucky enough to not be too big into crawling around the net for game info back then since all I had ever seen for the games at the time were commercials and maybe a magazine ad or two before they came out. I was pretty disappointed once I finished 3 after having watched every trailer and seeing that that was it, but what actually made me mad was one of the trailers for Re:MIND that seemed like it was teasing a fight I'm sure a lot of people were hoping for but just ended up with another Sora moment instead.
Yeah I’m one of those people who watched every trailer, every reaction, as many theories that I could, and still enjoyed the game. Even before ReMind. But even I understand the simple concept of pointing out what they could’ve done better.
Amazing job pat!
Knew this was going to be a banger when you first teased it. I’m one of the rare people whose favorite game is KHIII even while taking in every single trailer and TV spot. But when I look back, I think my fondest memories of the time are from the lead-up to the game tbh. I felt like I was rushing through the game to get to all the juicy parts that had already been unveiled. I can only imagine how much more I would have enjoyed it had everything not been revealed beforehand.
@DG You missed the second half of that statement.
What do I think you ask? I think you make great content and have great opinions and have great things to say. And that you're great. Mucho great.
there was a point where I stopped carting about the trailers, I was gonna buy it and kinda assumed the ending was going to disappoint me as endings always leave me disappointed. the foreteller secret bit did assuage the end of journey downer
also I remember the first time I made it to scala; it was like being a kid in a candy store with no money
@@Kapolio wow, someone finally put it into words....
As someone who avoided as much pre-release media as possible, this was really interesting. There really is a fine line you have to ride when making a trailer when it comes to showing too much versus showing too little.
Thanks for having the video only be 10 seconds long very good!
This video reminded (Re: Minded?) me of the day I bought KH3: I picked up my copy, and held off on playing until I went to work, went to the gym and hung out with some buddies. This was a deliberate attempt to remember that KH3 was no longer this nebulous, abstract, highly anticipated event. It was a product that I was holding in my hands and I had to put all expectation aside and judge for what it was. I ended up liking it. I wish more people did what I did.
I did play it like you. It was trash. And it still is.
I just want to say, you managed to change my outlook on KH2 and KH3. I replayed them after finding you and binge watching your videos, I used to think KH2 was simply the best game in the series, but I really see how much KH3 plays like KH1 in world design and its actually insane how blind I was to the quality to KH3 and I really do think it was due to the hype and wait.
I mean I do still think 2 is the best game in the series, but that's only down to me thinking that the story in 2 is tighter than 3's and that they still had the final fantasy charachters in it. 3's story had a few more cracks but still wonderfully written and I think they wrapped up everything great. The one thing I'm reserving judgement on is Kairi, unlike alot of people I was'nt super bothered about Xemnas grabbing her because dude it's XEMNAS a final boss level opponent and she's the least experienced member of the guardians so it made sense to me that she would'nt be able to beat him on her own. But I also thought and what I still think is that Nomura is using this to start an actual charachter arc for her that will hopefully have a good pay off in 4 or the next time we see her. So how I feel about her in this game will depend on if this is indeed what Nomura's doing but I'm pretty confident it is especially with how Melody of memories ended for her. I think he is going to dive into the guilt she might be feeling about being the reason Sora disappeared.
I like the worlds in 1 best, but I like them well enough in 3 with the more open design and return of platforming.
I just don't really vibe with the combat, it feels like between formchanges, attractions, summons and limits, if you just click triangle as it comes up you're left spending no time at all with the actual combat system.
Like Sora just kind of lugs this big key thing around, but when it's time to fight someone, his go-to move is turning into a pirate ship.
You literally posted this video on my birthday… why didn’t I watch this sooner…?
The first time I played this game honestly was when I was a newcomer to the series. I didn’t watch any of the trailers, didn’t play any of the previous games, and I didn’t even know most of the story.
I did actually hear about the game back in early 2018, but I literally completely forgot about it until my mom brought it for my sister and I to play.
I honestly wish I grew up with a the series myself. I mean, I’m only seventeen and was thirteen when this game came out, but it’s still possible.
I'm glad I skipped the final trailer and forgot a lot of small details from The others. Great content, Pat. Keep it up 😀
As a victim of the hype, I think KH3 definitely shot itself in the foot with the trailers but that wasn't all there was to it. When asked my opinion about KH3 I stop, sigh, and say, "It's the best Kingdom Hearts game..." in the most dejected voice I can. Because while there are some major issues with the Disney worlds, (Arendelle is infamous now, Corona was on par for KH2's dullest Disney worlds, and Caribbean was fun but completely lacking in plot,) the game was still really fun to play! But the worst part of it was just... that last level. The trailers somehow didn't spoil the end for me, yet I was still disappointed in everything about it. The boss battles were boring, the characters' plot-line resolutions came and left too quickly, and *everything* about Kairi was a disappointment. And the reason I was disappointed wasn't because of the trailers, but the precedent set by the previous games. I was used to fun and exciting boss battles with a variety of flashy moves, but instead we got two enemies with two moves each. The characters' plots were set up a decade in advance and every game since had been hyping up the resolution as a grand finale, not a one-and-done 3 min cutscene interspersed within the world's simplest boss run. Kairi has been saying, "I'll fight, too!" since KH2 and not once has she actually contributed to a meaningful battle; even in the DLC, her biggest moment was against Unnamed Xehanort Replica Prime where the outcome wasn't going to change anything because the battle was literally already won. (And this was *after* she got fridged in the most unceremonious way a character has been fridged since the 90s.)
The trailers did a lot to hype the game up while spoiling it, but the one of the main sources of hype was just all the previous games that had been making promises about KH3 for a decade. And it failed to live up to the promises previous games had made, and occasionally was just worst than the established precedent. KH3 made some of the best improvements to date, and has some of the best worlds, but it dropped the ball really hard on some of the areas it was most important to get right, and while it is the best KH game it also earned my ire as one of my least favorites.
It feels like this game is to kick off interest for more gamers. We have more young people and alot of them don't care or know much about kingdom hearts. Alot of footage is needed to show the content and gameplay to make them appease them.
Yozora is the next step to carry those new gamers into a more "cooler" territory and possibly slowly abandon some disney elements. Who knows.
As for final fantasy, I can't imagine we'll completely abandon them. I'm sure they'll use them to advertise other games in addition to any other square enix property. Why wouldn't they?
If Didney elements are abandoned, it’s not Kingdom Hearts.
I agree that it's a Square Enix thing in general. Remembering when FF13 really spoiled the juiciest bits in the prerelease trailers
Honestly, I think the part of this game for me was that I had already watched every trailer on release. For KH2, all I had was information from gaming magazines, so I didn't know much of what was coming my way outside of the introduction of Drive Forms, Limits, and the first few Disney worlds. The fact that there were literally no surprises left for this game by the time I started playing it just kinda left me feeling very hollow and underwhelmed, especially once we finish the Disney worlds and get into the KH plot.
I was someone who watched most of the trailers, and thus knew a majority of the characters who would return, but I still immensely enjoyed the game. At least, I enjoyed these character reveals in game just as much as I did watching the trailers.
My issues with this game are in the pacing, but that is not the topic of this video.
Honestly, I think what ruined KH3 for me more so than anything was expectation. Nomura does a great job of setting up solid ideas, concepts, and themes and then throwing them out of the window leaving little impact or time to enjoy them. In particular, for KH3, my expectations were high predominantly because DDD's ending screamed character development which doesn't really exist in Kingdom Hearts. Yes, Riku did receive character development. However, he always seems to be repeating the same character development over and over. He's constantly fighting the darkness within and at this point, it feels like a broken wheel when that was in KH1, Re:Chain, KH2, Re:Coded, DDD, and it just keeps going. Kairi and Sora though never developed and yet this game set the stage for it. Sora lost all his powers, almost fell to darkness, and SHOULD be at his lowest point. Kairi, meanwhile, is finally supposed to do something instead of being a plot device. I have officially given up on her being anything but a plot device and not a fully fleshed character after KH3 though. Add on to this Nomura's promise of an ending that's going to hurt and your expectations are going to be high. The intense number of reveals also compounded this problem as our assumption is that we're seeing only bits and pieces and the game is going to be so much larger.
However, upon release, it ends up being just as poorly written and not well-paced as any other Kingdom Hearts game. Worst yet, Nomura is having meta commentary and making fun of the games. I'm not offended by it, but it rubs me the wrong way when I see Donald's comments and Sora just tanking them without any signs of emotion beyond mild irritation. Or when Larxene essentially takes on the role of a KH fan and makes fun of plot points that we clearly expected to be handled better. I know he didn't mean any harm by them but it just didn't settle right with me. It comes across as "I hear your complaints. I know what you want. And, I don't care." rather than him taking feedback to heart and improving. It's been 9 games now. You'd think Nomura would realize fans would like the story to straighten out a bit rather than getting more convoluted (convoluted refers to how blotted the plot is. Complex would indicate it's hard to understand. For the most part, it's fairly easy to follow but overly convoluted in the way it handles it). I dunno it just made the game feel less great when I was expecting Nomura to fix what's wrong with his series and improve instead of taking on shiny new things while rushing a story that's had 8 games of preparation beforehand. And it all lies in how this game had a long development time, the perfect set-up for a strong plot, and it just fell apart in favor of shiny paint and fan service. It just wasn't really worth the long wait for this kind of a payoff at least to me.
Kingdom Hearts going meta should have been modus operandi from get go. KH tries too much to be some solid world where things have clear cut rules or mechanics when there is just some much random BS that it should've just let loose and have fun with it. Creating bloated rulings for time travel or making big overblown bait-&-switch plot in mobile games just kill any charm the story could have. Those elements can still be there but they really didn't need as much focus as they got.
For me, that's more so Kingdom Hearts trying to substitute a soft-magic system with a hard-magic system. Kingdom Hearts typically functioned with a soft-magic system especially in KH1 where the rules and ideas presented were flexible. As time went on, Nomura tried to 'harden' the magic system. You can do that, but once you do, then you can't go back to that flexibility. You have to write within the very rules that you wrote with no exceptions. In this case, complicated time travel that was proceeded to give exceptions because of the story is one example of how Nomura failed to balance his systems. Another example is him introducing a complicated system for passing down key blades then proceeding to disprove its complexity in the same game. If the key blade was only passed down by the ceremony instead and Sora was only able to wield one while a Key blade wielder was in his heart, it would actually work as a concept. However, that's how to write a hard magic system where the rules are strongly governed rather than the flexible version that Nomura's been playing around with.
When I talk about meta, I specifically refer to how the games draw attention to how its story is viewed outside of its universe. Meta can work fairly well if a story doesn't take itself seriously and draws attention to itself or how other games are played. However, that's a meta where the target is clearly on the tropes or ideas governing the game, not valid criticism. I found Nomura trying to draw attention to plot points that people had real gripes with uncomfortable. While I can assume he meant no harm, it rubs me the wrong way when instead of fixing said criticisms he's drawing attention to them even more. It comes across as "I read your complaints and I don't care. I'm writing this how I want." or as "I guess you guys failed to grasp the finer points of my plot." Again, Nomura isn't actually saying this, but it's an underlying interpretation someone might get when he's drawing attention to how Axel is popular (implying we're why he's still in the games) or calling out why Demyx is a member of the new organization when his literal wording implied Demyx was a failure to the bone in DDD. This style of writing can and does work, but I feel it works best when it isn't trying to make fun of the complaints hashed out by fans and instead the writer takes them seriously.
@@fridaylambda3494 I try to be merciful with Nomura cause the dude himself has admitted that he is not a writer. He mostly tries to use the tropes his contemporaries at the studio have used. Nomura is not really an auteur like Kojima who can have the most batshit insane idea and people just follow through. Nomura, despite fans thinking otherwise, just joins lukewarm versions of the stories his collaques from Squaresoft have done before and while he was working with them. Xehanort's life being timeloop in DDD? Done already in FF1. Identity crisis of Roxas and Sora? Done already in FF7. Nomura is not that imaginative as storyteller when he is without his friends from Squaresoft times to ball out his ideas.
In my wording by "meta" I mean that the story as you said doesn't try to take itself that seriously and just embraces oddities and just goes for what is cool and fun. Perhaps the story can hit some serious parts sometimes but overall concept still is more on loose side. I just can't take Roxas' identity crisis or Xion thing in Days or BBS trio seriously when you have game where Donald tries to pronounciate "Sephiroth". It is already too silly that any attempt to make serious story just falls flat. Organization XIII was just so sterile concept for story with as silly premise as KH to be taken seriously.
If KH4 tries to implement Nomura's bitterness from Versus XIII and some more meta aspects from his time with horrible management of both Disney and SquareEnix, then it likely has far more "oomph" than just trying to tell regular anime story.
KH as premise is so silly and stupid that I think current story just undermines possibilities it could have. This "hard coded magic system" is indeed just hindrance to the story cause i think Nomura didn't need to create it in the first place. KH if anything would have given Nomura free plateau to use any crazy idea he has but he still seems to just tie himself down with silly logic within the universe.
I am oddity in that I think KH story is actually just too bland for the premise it has right now rather than just embracing the madness and having fun with it.
@@fridaylambda3494 Nomura needs to stop trying to "make sense". Show a finger to fanbase and get totally crazy with his stuff. People compare KH to fan-fiction but at least genuine fan-fiction is entertaining even if it sucks.
I can respect that. I think the reason why Nomura's work often times fails is because he tries to take the series too seriously. As such, he keeps revising his work to make it fit more narratively. However, as he does so, the plot holes he keeps trying to plug only detract and worsen the story as it makes it clear that he's making the whole series one cohesive whole, not individual parts. And it's fine that he's not a writer, but he should at least ask for some script advice from other writers to improve the narrative naturally. I do think that you make a fair point that if he gets less serious and lets the story play out as is that the zaniness would work better. It's clear especially in KH3 that Nomura's writing doesn't work well with serious topics and that his games focus more on trying fun new mechanics.
For me, I think Nomura should just tell the audience "It's a work in progress. I try to think of new ways to help the narrative grow and evolve. You can't expect me to be a god-tier writer and compile that up to be tied into a neat bow." It'd certainly be better than drawing attention to the issues in-univerise as I've seen how other games have done just that and end up pissing off fans as it can be a slap to the face. What Nomura did in KH3 was perfectly passable, but I'm hoping he doesn't keep going and accidentally shoot himself in the process. He should instead be blunt honest with the fanbase and keep going with what he likes.
Kingdom Hearts is technically a crossover fan fiction. Just I think Nomura's biggest issue is that he's not embracing the crossover anymore so they end up feeling forced and unnatural. This ties into your point about being non-serious and embracing the insanity essentially. Nomura's work should be deeply tied with both the main plot and the plots of whatever worlds he throws in. I think this constrained plot structure (which is due in part to corporate meddling) is one of the biggest issues with KH3 as it functionally makes over half the game feel like filler (and even makes me question why Sora is still so hung over Kairi). I definitely think embracing the chaos of Disney meets FF would work much better overall then taking this super serious tone that just doesn't work 7/10 times.
Great video! Your experience is pretty much mine. I avoided everything after the Pirates trailer, barring a couple headlines, and then went back to look at them after beating the game. I was appalled at how much they revealed, especially Sora's anguished wail at losing everyone which was a genuine pit-in-the-stomach moment for me. I made sure to avoid as much as I could for ReMind and FFVIIR and will continue to do so for future SE games, but I really hope they learn that pre-release hype can only serve you in the moment...And come to think of it, I hope every other media company out there will eventually ditch this kind of 'in-the-moment' centric marketing as well.
oh no i'm probably about to enter my first pre-release cycle for a major kh game...
I have a lot of fond memories of the pre release period for kh3 because I loved being part of the community and reacting together and having fun with memes like Sora selfie and hey loser. I loved gasping in shock together at things like aquanort or lea crying. I also wouldn’t be able to avoid it social media or discord. It was fun to be involved but looking back, I had more fun then than I had actually playing the game which is a major problem. I had all my fun with the game and reacting to it before it was even in my hands and being nostalgic for a time before THE major kh entry existed is. Bad.
I’m also beyond shocked to hear about the trailers for past games. The only thing I can remember from 3D’s trailers were the dream eaters who I rolled my eyes at but I like kh so I was always going to buy a 3DS just to play kh. And I LOVE 3D, and I don’t think I would enjoy it as much as I did if I knew Lea or Xigbar would be back. That game if full of such great twists and turns and has one of the most emotional and tense stories in the series and if I had thought it would be anything but a lame side quest with technicolor panda bears before going in, it wouldn’t have been as impactful.
And I know we’ve entered an age where we criticize marvel for its secrecy to avoid spoilers and say if the only way to enjoy something is to only see it once unspoiled, then it wasn’t good, but stories do need some degree of surprise or at least, they need to be worth your time and money by showing you something new that you didn’t already see months prior. I was even upset when they revealed Dont Think Twice and Face My Fears because I lost that experience of being hit with a fresh new song like I had booting up kh1 and 2. But I’ve learned my lesson, no more Square Enix trailers for me!
The problem with KH3 (and this is very obvious from the first few trailers compared to the last) is that it was supposed to be an entirely different game. The first draft of KH3 was developed by the same devs as KH1 and KH2, square enix’s Tokyo team. It was about 30-40% done and looked to play much more like “KH2 with flow motion”. The graphics were so much better because they were using their very own engine, the Kingdom Shader, the combat looked so much nicer, and we were promised and I quote “MORE WORLDS THAN ANY KINGDOM HEARTS GAME EVER”. This was no doubt Square Enix’s top priority at the time, seeing as it was the third mainline title and it was being handled by their best developers based out of Tokyo - until 2015 when they decided to shift the project from the hands of their best developers into the hands of their 2nd best developers which are a group out of Osaka named ~Osaka team. Osaka team developed almost all of the spin offs of KH games, and they are infamous for their floaty combat and short stories. When KH3 was handed down to Osaka team about 30-40% finished, their developers had no idea how to operate on the Kingdom Shader engine, thus they decided to scrap our game completely and rebuild it on unreal 4 with shiny/cartoony graphics, floaty combat, and it only had like 7 worlds and a third of twilight town because it was rushed out the door after being delayed because they threw away half of a finished game due to their own incompetence. Meanwhile, why was the project shifted to Osaka in the first place you may ask? THE EXECS DECIDED TO MAKE FFVII REMAKE AND PROJECTED IT WOULD SELL BETTER. Idiots should’ve left KH3 alone and let it drop completely finished as the amazing game we all waited 10+ years for that everything else was supposed to be building up to. Then they should’ve dropped a complete FFVII remake with the launch of PS5 (which PS5 also should’ve been delayed and been a much bigger step up), but yanno, execs want their money now man.
"Tokyo team" hasn't existed since KH2. No development team is going to have the same exact devs working on one game series for a decade, things always shift around. KH3 has always had a mixture of people who worked on earlier titles and the "Osaka" games. If you go back and look at the early trailers for the game, Sora's base combo (that people hated) is literally the same as in the final pre-Remind version of KH3.
The Kingdom Shader isn't an engine... it's, as the name says, a shader. And also, it was still used in the final game.
The Osaka team was the head of development for KH3 from the very beginning. The game didn't switch development teams during development, it switched engines from the Luminous Engine to Unreal 4. This didn't change the team developing the game at all.
As for the worlds, Nomura stressed in interviews that, at the time, they were looking at more worlds to be included than previous games, but stated that, as what happens with every game, many would likely be cut before they arrive at the final roster. Due to the nature of the series, they always start out with proposals for more worlds than they finish with, as, during development, they get trimmed down due to various reasons until they land on the final count.
@@braigybraig okay, so “Tokyo Team” is still a real thing that exists today, there are many members who naturally have fallen off since the times of KH1 and KH2, however many members remain. It will always be the lead team for square Enix since they base their HQ out of Tokyo. They will always put their highest budget games in the hands of Tokyo team because they have the most creative people and resources at hand. It is for all intents and purposes their elite squad. Tokyo team handled KH1 and KH2 because at the time square enix had never secured a contract with anyone as big as Disney, they made sure they threw everything they had into those games. I assure you that launch KH3 has a very different base combo from the first D23 trailer we got of KH3 where Sora is in twilight town. The stick doesn’t hang when you start a run animation, and the air combat isn’t floaty at all, sora snaps to the ground with his finishers - the flow is far more like that of KH2. And who was hating his base combo back then?! I couldn’t hear anyones complaints over all that mind-bending hype and fan-tears.
@@AudoPlay My mistake, they were using the Luminous engine and attempted to make the shader look decent on Unreal even though it was designed for Luminous and it of course failed to look half as good. And no, Osaka team absolutely did not lead development from the beginning. It was square enix’s biggest project next to ffxv, both of which were being handled by Square’s main development HQ. They had a beautiful game nearing half completion. When they decided to do FFVIIR, they figured nothing could go wrong passing the project down to people who have worked on the series in the past and square gave it over to Osaka team in 2015. It was very shortly after that the game was completely scrapped due to their developers not understanding the original game engine, and rather than taking the time to learn Luminous, Osaka decided to make a clown show remake of the game Tokyo team left them. But now, they were in super rush mode. How fast can you rebuild a game and finish it? As fast as the execs will let you. That’s why there’s a third of the worlds we were promised, that’s why the vocal and sound effects are so unbalanced from the rest of the game music, that’s why the combat was made floaty by the same people who know we’ve always hated their floaty combat, and that’s why we have half of twilight town and shiny plastic graphics and terribly textured fur on Sully. Each of these little mistakes are there because somebody had to hurry. It’s a tragedy what happened to us fans because this game was supposed to be so much better and we all deserved so much more after waiting so long. I have a feeling that’s where KH4 is going with this whole “realistic graphics alternate reality” is to show off how they wanted to make our game look in the first place, like a smooth and buttery claymation movie where you can see fibers on peoples clothes. A nice finished game.
We’ve seen Kingdom Hearts when devs try their hardest and obsess to make it complete,
and we’ve seen Kingdom Hearts when devs are cutting corners trying to sell us something that’s not genuine.
#FreePapaNomura
@@mistayoutubah You are wrong. Osaka has always led the development for KH3. A couple of months after DDD was released, Nomura said that the Osaka team was already working on their next title. That title was revealed to be KH3 a few months later. Tai Yasue, the head of the Osaka Team, has been co-director for KH3 from day one. The Osaka team worked in Luminous Engine for the first few years of development, but they had to switch to Unreal partway through. There are tons of interviews with the Osaka team talking about KH3 spanning from the very beginning of development to the final game. KH3 was never primarily led by the Tokyo Team.
"Instead, Kingdom Hearts 3 is being developed by Square Enix’s Osaka studio, the publisher revealed this morning at a Q&A" this is a quote from an article about KH3's announcement in 2013
Before I got my hands on KH3, I had only seen maybe two or three trailers in total. I knew about some of the disney worlds that would be in the game, as well as Twilight Town making a return but that was about it. I can vividly remember how hyped I was to FINALLY get the game, I even took a week off of work to do nothing but play the game. It met all my expectations and then some, I had such a great time with it, plus I loved returning to it with the ReMind DLC. I consider myself to be kinda lucky, not having been spoiled on too many things before playing it and it kinda upsets me to hear about how the trailers and commercials just gave away soooo much of the game.
This video made me feel so much better about the fact I got into the series in 2020 and never watched any of the marketing for KH3 before jumping into it after the rest of the games. Holy shit.
For me personally I absolutely inhaled EVERYTHING official in the pre release, stayed away from leaks, but I dived into discussions and theory videos and forums. I was in so many KH groups on discord Facebook Twitter,, I was fully plugged in, and it was the most fun I had being excited for anything.
And then the game came out and it was still the single most satisfying gaming experience I have every had. It was just magical.
But maybe I'm just weird
I’ve been getting back into the theories
They’re really nice. It’s a really good feeling to just get wrapped up in just fun story stuff regarding what you love
I agree. Me and my sis went to the midnight release after seeing all the trailers. We were so excited and heck we absolutely loved the game so much and cried in some scenes.
I'm really glad you put the "ruin" in quotes, because I'm so fucking tired of dunking on kh games and I wouldn't have excepted the answer to be no.
Appreciate the Phil Collins text joke
idk what list you're going to look at to find all of the direct-to-DVD Disney movies but i really hope it includes Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin. not gonna say why, I'll let you figure that out lol
I watched every trailer, first playthrough I was disappointed but after realizing I set my expectations too high I went through it again and loved it (Remind included)
Sounds like you gaslighted yourself because it was somehow less painful than admitting that KH isn't what you remember anymore. Your expectations were too high because you expected a good game? Oh the horror
@@pascalsimioli6777 or they could have just readjusted their opinion? Sounds like you got a problem with letting people enjoy a game
Yo yo finally!!!
I didn't watch a single trailer for KH3 because I was kind of a late-comer to the series. I LOVED it on my first playthrough. I'm so glad Vanitas in Monstropolis and Anti-Aqua were surprises for me, because I was losing my mind over those and other moments while playing the game.
I think many fans got into the franchise with the 1.5, 2.5, 2.8, and 1.5 + 2.5 remixes that had multiple games at once so a lot if fans never got exposed to all the pre release trailers associated with each of the games before 3.
Wouldn’t say “ruined” I would say dropped the ball in a lot of places. They put so much into the Disney worlds, but nowhere near enough into the actual kingdom hearts story and characters.
Bringing back aqua, terra, Ventus, roxas, namine, xion, etc should have been really emotional and significant and gave closure, but they felt like brief bleeps that were rushed through.
I avoided most of the trailers, and going into KH3 I knew to keep my expectations lows as I'm very particular and DDD completely lost me on the plot. That being said I knew Larxene was back and was so excited to interact with her as she's one of my favorite O13 members, so when she was barely in it and you only fought her once I was so disappointed. Of course, being an Aqua stan and seeing her dark reveal I lost my mind! But then to find she's barely in it, her presence is so weak, and she just gets wrecked in every fight? I got big mad. I wasnt going to like KH3 regardless of whether I watched all the trailers or not, but I will say that if I had watched all the trailers I 100% would not have bought the game and seeing the trailers which showed Aqua and Larxene definitely ruined what could have been my favorite parts of the game as they would have been surprises.
I somehow forgot to watch this until now, but here I am now!
It's crazy that I haven't watched every trailer yet still was able to piece the majority of the story.
Would you happen to have a link to the special version trailer? I haven't seen that and it looks interesting!
Holy shit, I didn't even realize how much footage of the game they actually showed over the years. I think I watched all videos and I would say KH3 was a really underwhelming experience for me because all of these scenes set the bar really high. When I eventually played through the game it seemed like nothing exciting was happening anymore and I felt like I had already seen everything the game had to offer. Now I finally know why
I have not watched any trailers. I've played all kh games except for 3d and recoded and love the franchise. But saying 3 is better than 2 or 1 is just not true for me. Story in 1 was great and player growth was very nice. 2 story was ok, interesting enough even if dispersed, but movement was unbelievably good, with 100% control over what you wanted to do. Kh3 graphics we're amazong, but story didn't click for me and movement mostly felt kh2 tuned down. Keyblades in 3 were amazing, but movement felt constrained even if it had some new options. Also disney worlds felt handheld storywise. Idk, kh1 and 2 and even 358/2 ive played at least 4 or 5 times, kh3 i had to push myself to finish again, had almost no emotions while playing specialily again and definitely didn't want to make it 100% as i do with the others time and time again.
Wait.... Where is that Scene from 0:50 from?
I’ll admit, I got KH3 fatigue during the looooong hiatus from a couple of UA-camrs who theorized over the smallest announcements and tore apart trailers over and over. I was excited, but when the game came out, it felt hollow. It also felt like I wasn’t really earning game progression. It was more like I was simply going through the predetermined motions and then the cut scenes were actually doing all of the work. Then, all of a sudden, at the end it just crammed all of this stuff in and boom! It’s over. I didn’t know how to feel when I’d beaten it. I didn’t feel like I’d done anything and I wasn’t exactly excited for the next installment. I just felt like “Is it over?”
YAY
The entire franchise started to ruin itself in 2012 when DDD was released, it reafirmed this same statement back in the release of BBS 0.2 when they put Aqua through all those shit just so she could turn also another Xehanort, and in 2019, god, this game really did everything they could to deliever us absolutely nothing regardless to something we had waited for more then a decade since the release of KH2.
Sooo good Pat
I remember watching all the trailers but thankfully I moved to university in 2018 and didn't have a TV in my student halls so I couldn't play it on release. Waiting for another year to play it and focusing on university and adjusting to a new life, I watched all the trailers but never theorised or really thought much about what was going to be in the game since I knew I wasn't going to be playing it anytime soon. I remember bits and pieces from the trailers but I never remembered that much being given away.
When I finally got my hands on a copy of the game a year or so after release, I absolutely loved it. I'm replaying it at the moment and still really enjoy it, I think my foggy memory of the trailers may have something to do with that.
I want to do a video on this topic some day, and I'm glad that people are still discussing what went wrong with KH3. I do wish the best for the franchise, and I hope Square can produce better masterpieces. It's still a fantastic game, but I think the greatest criticism of the game is a more fundamental one. Behind the pointless world exploration and minigames, it's all to hide one simple fact. Master Xehanort was not properly built up as Sora's main antagonist. This is due to the lack of exploration for their THEMATIC conflict - a story is only as good as its main conflict.
That's it. That's the main reason why the story felt weightless (until the ReMind DLC). That's why people are unsatisfied with the ending. Let me explain myself. I love Master Xehanort's character, and I love Sora's character. It's just that the nature of their conflict isn't explored enough.
Conflict 1: Xehanort wants the world to start anew by using KH to get rid of the darkness in the world, while Eraqus (and Sora) believes that people's lights are sufficient for people to live in harmony with/despite the darkness. We weren't shown until Union Cross WHY Xehanort wanted the world to restart into something else. Furthermore, while I agree that Sora would choose Eraqus' stance, we never explore why Sora would come to this decision. This sort of philosophical conflict is very different from other versions of Xehanort, where the conflict is more simplistic. Here, Sora needed to sort of think his way through why he wants to prevent Xehanort from turning the worlds to dust. Sora's INTRINSIC motivation to stop Xehanort is weak. In fact, Xehanort even commented on this at the Keyblade graveyard, "you require motivation," as he slashes Kairi.
Conflict 2: Xehanort imposes his heart onto others, while Sora simply connects with them without controlling them. This is one of the most classical thematic conflicts of all time. But at no point did we explore on this dichotomy. It's simply implied, but I'd like this to be a front and center theme. Imagine if instead of Ansem corrupting Aqua, you have MASTER Xehanort recruit Aqua to his side. Then, Sora would have to connect with Aqua's heart to save her from Xehanort's control. What a game that would be. In fact, we can go from heart to heart to help weaken Xehanort's control on hearts.
There's more I'm missing, but yeah. The above will be a UA-cam video some day. And I hope to hire voice actors and animators to re-tell my own version of KH3 (that will tie in nicely with ending on ReMind)
After years of digesting it, I can appreciate it for what it is. The story and spectacle still works for me, there is some good presentation , lots of nice little details. It’s just at the end of the day, the combat, which is the core gameplay and 80 percent of what you actually do, just is not satisfying for me. I can see how it would be fine for some people, it’s not bad, and it’s flashy and kind of fun, but it just doesn’t have the weight or depth of kh2. I actually like kh1 combat more than 3, because even though it’s a lot simpler, it seems more well thought out and feels skill based.
3 just feels like a musou (like hyrule warriors, etc) and I actually love a good musou, but it’s not what I want from kingdom hearts. But it’s fine I just have to accept that the team who made 1 and 2 is dead, and that I’m only playing for story now.
Just curious; but have you played the game since the 1.09/REMIND update came out? The new 6 base combo modifier abilities that were added to the game; with the proper ability setup; make the game’s combat feel the fastest and most responsive in the series to me; and 2FM was not only my favorite game in the series, but had my favorite action combat system of all time until REMIND was released; so I understand what you’re talking about. I even go back to KH2 sometimes now and it feels agonizingly slower in comparison to REMIND. Starting the game on critical mode new game+ (with the REMIND abilities and all the keyblades unlocked from the start) is genuinely my favorite gameplay experience of any game I’ve ever played now. If you haven’t; I really hope you go back to the game and give the combat a shot with those additions in mind; it really changes how the entire game’s combat feels. Just a suggestion; might change your opinion of the game in general.
The hypest moments of my Birth by Sleep playthrough? Watching the trailers on UA-cam. Waiting for it to install on my Memory Stick, something you never had to do with other PSP games. Watching the opening cinematic. Then the game actually began and... it screamed "we had to cut corners to fit this on a PSP". The levels were wide open and empty. They made a Snow White world without animals. They made a Lilo & Stitch world without Hawaii. The ending of BBS looked worse than the teasers we'd seen in pre-rendered graphics before, and it had zero surprises. Everything cool about the game had already been showed in the trailers, and I paid to experience the worst parts. I felt robbed.
Kingdom Hearts III did the same, only worse. I tried to contain my excitement and I eventually did my best to avoid trailers, yet UA-cam kept forcing me to see them, and people kept putting spoilers in video thumbnails. By the time I actually got to play the game, it was incredibly boring because there was no sense of wonder, no surprises, nothing of what made me like KH in the first place. The ending was so frustratingly unsatisfying that I gave up on ever replaying the game.
But hey, I probably would've been disappointed by the gameplay anyways. I still think KH1 was the best one. So take it with a grain of salt I guess.
I remember getting the game 3 days before release and finishing it on the actual release date. I have cried many tears because 15 year old me at that time has been waiting for the game since she was 10 and when I saw the title screen I was so happy. Sad to say though, the title screen is one of the best things about the game.
By the time I played through, I was crying too. More of a confused "what was this" though. I really expected more and the trailers kind of ruined the experience. I did the platinum but ever since I never touched the game again, not even for ReMind.
With that said, I never actually bought a SE game again. Not even watched trailers. Moreso out of time reasons but also out of lack of care. Only got FF7R through the PS+ offer but I never played it through, again out of time reasons.