Half On Track: Storytelling in Kingdom Hearts 3
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- Опубліковано 24 лют 2019
- This video is a follow-up to my original Dream Drop Distance-centric video. It is an analysis of the writing in Kingdom Hearts 3, so of course massive spoilers abound.
All footage is borrowed from other channels and here are links to all those sources:
KH3 Cutscenes:
• Kingdom Hearts 3 - Cut...
fGTaV7Kg0HSG_
www.youtube.com/watch?v=63tOD...
U&list=PLq9hZyBwcBonlG3O4kPSCcKOHcWl4c2xn
• Kingdom Hearts 3 - Cut...
fGTaV7Kg0HSG_
Riku’s Keyblade Breaks:
• Video
Twilight Town B-Roll:
• Video
Formchanges:
• Kingdom Hearts 3 - For...
OcBOMO3aQh7x7H2ChPoCn
Attraction Flow:
• Kingdom Hearts 3 All A...
Team Attacks:
• Kingdom Hearts 3 All C...
Links (Summons):
• Kingdom Hearts 3 - All...
BBS HD Cutscenes:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-
rkNM9Hsq6c&list=PL7BtBhpHsbHXM70Hs3b24FAirMQbeC7cf&index=25
• Kingdom Hearts Birth B...
KH2 HD Cutscenes:
• Kingdom Heart 2.5 HD R...
OEeFnyoWe7T-END
Gummi Ship Gameplay:
• Kingdom Hearts 3 Omega...
I legit forgot Kairi was dead until Sora said something
Ozymandias the sad thing is that I used to be a big KH fan, and hearing a spoiler like that would upset me. But now, after realizing that the series only has 2 good games, I don’t even care. And I’m glad she’s dead.
@@breakingpoint252 Actually, Sora's the one who's dead. He dies as the price of bringing her back.
Is this even actually the case? Honestly, that entire end scene didn't make that much sense to me. I expected both Sora and Kairi to fade away; Riku thinking about how the trio is separated yet again. Then only Sora fades away, suggesting that something happened off screen which should have been a playable epilogue. Then, just to make things worse, the Secret Ending has both Sora and Riku in a mysterious new location, so Sora clearly isn't dead. Not that dying is treated as much more than a mild cough for all the weight is has in the series now. It's really just more poor story execution. @@GihirahimOfTheShadow
The Mark bro that’s even better.
Ultimate Invincible To be honest it’s hard for me to care too since Kairi’s development as a character is still pretty bad in KH3, she has pretty much devolved into simply being Sora’s love interest, it’s hard to care about a character that even the games seems to not really care about.
Personally, I don't have a problem with the idea that building Sora's strength back up was the main reason to go to all the Disney worlds, but I wish they'd been more upfront about it. If Yen Sid had just said, "Sora, you've lost most of your abilities, and you need to go and regain your strength in preparation for the final battle," then that would have been just absolutely fine. No worse than "Sora, you must go to these worlds to find out the Organization's plans," or "Sora, you must go to these other worlds to seal the Keyholes."
But because they kept making the stupid power of waking the explicit focus of the plot, we all felt cheated when it turned out that none of it was relevant to retrieving the power. I would have been fine with it having just been for getting Sora's strength back up, but they should have gone with that from the beginning.
You’re genius. That really great cuz the gameplay wise relates to the story wise and that insane
I have an add on that involves my what if scenario in a comment on his prior video about Dream Drop, where throughout that story which each sleeping keyhole unlocked Sora experiences a memory from Roxas and negative emotion from seeing an organization member like Xemnas, Xigbar, hell add Marluxia in the mix. All that builds up with him tapping into the power of darkness for the first time storytelling wise as he bashes Xemnas or Marluxia which almost results in him being norted.
That could also fit into the regaining of his strength, Sora gets a taste for the powers of darkness and deep down wants more and thats why Yen Sid puts him on that journey so Sora can learn to keep that darkness in check as the Guardians can't have a loose cannon ticking time bomb, this can also tie into Rage Form which can appear in a cutscene.
Now whether Roxas comes back or not is up to you, but I prefer if he and Sora's hearts merged as Light and Darkness come together in balance to form Twilight, maybe with that evolution of Sora's heart Kingdom Key upgrades into a new form representing the merger of hearts. Making Sora ready to take on the darkness again
You act like norting jiminy's journal is beyond nomura's scope of crazy... It's NOT.
LOL touche
So basically, the entire series after kh2 needs a rewrite. Preferably by someone who can keep details and rules straight!!
An easy rule of thumb for aspiring writers out there - DON'T retcon. Ever. It's just not worth it. I don't care how cool your idea is - don't do it. Retconning is where the series started to fall apart and then time travel pushed it over the edge.
@@ThrillingDuck i also agreee about kairi- i mean she was reduced to a damsel again!!! Don't get me wrong, i don't want her winning every battle all by herself. Just don't make her completely useless, and don't give her the same reputation as princess peach!!! At least have her on par with zelda :(
THIS game really made me both very angry AND sad. I really wished Nomura would stop working as a director and writer.
Nomura just doesn't know how to introduce good ideas and concepts into the series without retconning something else out of existence. He retroactively ruins previous stories so he can push whatever concept he's interested in at the moment.
Eliomi Like the foretellers? I can fairly say that I did'nt emphasise with ANY of the characters, because they barely did Or say anything at all! The only one who really made an appearence was Aqua with her sexy dark Form and creating a barrier to do a one on one and Axel with his voice acting. Marluxia and Larxene just LOOK very damn good, that's why don't have to do much to be likable! This story is shit!
I agree with everything on the whole ”keyblades can break/be physically lost now” be but I want to mention that the hundreds of keyblades that Sora and co collected *weren’t* physical blades they were *keychains FOR the keyblade.*
Attaching a new keychain gives the keyblade itself a new form, but it’s still whatever the user’s keyblade was.
Now this does raise a few questions like, how did Kairi get Destiny’s Embrace, or rather how did Riku get it for her... and what does Kairi’s base keyblade even look like?
Also, another point: Aqua lost her first keyblade, Rainfell/Stormfall, saving Terra. Although how she couldn’t just call it back to herself later, I don’t know.
Also why didn’t Eraqus’ Keyblade just disappear when he died, again, no clue.
Edit: my conclusion is that Nomura made up a bunch of rules but he only sometimes follows them
Just little nitpicks on my part, I love your video analysis overall.
For most of the series, I always assumed that Sora doesn't actually get new keyblades and that he just mods the Kingdom Key with new key chains. (This being distinct from actually aquiring a new keyblade, which is also a thing that can canonically happen.)
In fact, I always kinda preferred to think of this as non-diegetic game mechanics, that is to say the idea is that Sora always uses the Kingdom Key from start to finish as far as the story is concerned, and the other ones are just there to give the player upgrades. Note that nobody ever references that Sora's keyblade has changed in any way. This also explains why they never keep keyblade upgrades from previous games, even though acquiring most of them isn't optional.
This is admittedly somewhat tricky to reconcile with KH2 where some of the extra keyblades have to be reserved for the drive forms, but perhaps those keyblades only appear when Sora uses that ability.
Regarding keyblades breaking, there is _some_ precedent for this. The Keyblade Graveyard is full of old keyblades and Xehanort stated that they "used to be full of power" suggesting that keyblades can "die" or go inert. Another thing to note is that the regular Keyblades are implied to be weaker imitations of the χ-blade, which did break. I mean, that was kind of a big plot point. Anyway, while it makes sense keyblades would be largely immune to mundane damage, I don't really see why they would be completely indestructible, especially when subjected to high levels of dark power.
Side note: Mickey said his keyblade was merely damaged, as opposed to Riku's which actually broke. This is important because the established reason Mickey and Riku can enter the Realm of Darkness so easily is because Mickey's Kingdom Key D is special, having originated from that realm. Since they were able to just go back after visiting Merlin, I suspect Mickey never actually got a "new" keyblade - the one he uses for the rest of the game is still the Kingdom Key D, it's just been repaired and upgraded.
Moving on: Kairi was given Destiny's Embrace by Riku who presumably found it somewhere and kept it. That actually isn't especially weird: There seems to be two ways of acquiring keyblades: Either you are given or just pick up an old one, or a personalized one just sorta materializes from your heart or something. The first one is well established: Xehanort's keyblade has changed hands several times, Mickey is heavily implied to have "borrowed" Star Seeker from Yen Sid in Birth by Sleep, there's Aqua just taking Master's Defender, and even back in the first game Riku just straight up stole Sora's keyblade. The rule here seems to be that the keyblade returns to the wielder if an unworthy person tries to take it, but anyone who has the ability can just pick up any keyblade and use it.
The other method, summoning a new keyblade from scratch, is not firmly established as far as I know. I'm honestly just assuming this is a thing because it explains some stuff that would otherwise be _really weird._ For example, the designs of Riku's and Lea/Axel's keyblades are way too specific to match their character motifs for that to be a coincidence. They pretty much have to have been born from them somehow.
Then there's Xion using the Kingdom Key, even though Sora also has it. That means there's somehow two identical Kingdom Keys, which straight up didn't make any sense to me. Like, were did that other one even come from? The only way I can rationalize this is that Xion actually manifested her own keyblade and it's identical to Sora's due to her connection to him, but they're not actually the same keyblade. It's weird as hell, but I suppose it makes a bit of sense.
Regardless, it seems it doesn't matter how exactly you acquire the keyblade, once you have one it's yours unless it is broken, given away, lost or stolen. I don't think Kairi ever actually had a "base" keyblade of her own, if that is even a diagetic thing. Though it's possible Kairi could manifest a personal keyblade unique to her. It was just never necessary.
Regarding Aqua's keyblade troubles, this is going into heavy headcanon territory. That said, we know she sent her original keyblade to the Realm of Light just before completely sinking into the Realm of Darkness, and that she was apparently unable to summon it back after that. Thus she had to use Eraqus's Master's Defender for her entire exile. From this we can hypothesize that one of the rules of the cosmology is that keyblades can't be summoned from one realm to the other, though the wielder can bring them along. This isn't too far-fetched given how the two realms appear to be metaphysically separate, plus Aqua's keyblade was almost certainly a Keyblade of Light, and thus not natural to the Realm of Darkness.
Aqua losing Master's Defender is admittedly weird and a bit of a blatant plot device, however since it appears to have somehow appeared in the Realm of Light, it actually makes sense she can't summon it back if we take the above hypothetical rule into account.
Regarding Master's Defender not disappearing when Eraqus died: Ignoring the fact that Eraqus wasn't even completely dead this whole time, we actually have no real reason to think this is something that happens and a lot of reason to think it doesn't, such as the Keyblade Graveyard and people inheriting old keyblades. More importantly, Eraqus straight up told Aqua that if something happened to him she was to take his keyblade and use it to lock the Land of Departure up. So, Eraqus was pretty much counting on Master's Defender persisting to be passed on after his death.
What else... Ah, Mickey's keyblade not disappearing so that Aqua could steal it when Riku's keyblade did dematerialize is odd but not totally inexplicable. Keyblades returning to hammerspace when the wielder drops it appears to be a sort of dead man's switch-type security feature to ensure it isn't lost by accident, but this only seems to apply when it is connected to a designated wielder. Both times Aqua lost her keyblades they didn't just vanish, presumably because that connection was lost, and Xehanort's keyblade apparently spent some time just hanging on a wall, etc.
So, I _suppose_ getting trapped by that heartless tornado thing somehow jammed Mickey's connection to his keyblade, leaving it "up for grabs" so to speak.
And, well, that's all I have, I think. I may be wrong about some of this stuff, maybe even a lot, but that's the best explanations I have at this time.
fervidor is the real ansem the wise
bruh u really wrote some secret reports here
It would have been really cool if mid game you saved Aqua and then, after saving Ven, you could have a side quest where you go to find Aqua's Keyblade in Radiant Garden, on the room where Xemnas speaks to the armor. One thing that really bugs me is that Radiant Garden is back to how it was in BBS. I don't get how it was restored so quickly and there are no signs of the restoration. How did they get it exactly to how it was?. An explorable Radiant Garden that was a hybrid between KH2 RG and BBS RG would have been so amazing. Radiant Garden and Twilight Town were really dissapointing, man.
@@aidanrettich6552 Sometimes I worry I write too much, but then I reach a point where I'm like: "Eh, screw it, let's keep this going." If I can't make my point brief, I may as well go for exhaustive.
"KH2 is the Melee of the KH series" is such a good way to word it.
I especially agree with your point about the ending. For the entire final battle and ending, I had a hanging sense of dread over all the cool stuff that was happening. I couldn't help but feel like something wasn't right. Not only did it feel unsatisfying to see the main character get whisked away like that, but it kinda dampened the entire final boss for me as well :/
Unpopular opinion right here but...
When Kairi said I'll protect you or whatever in the scene before the big fight, they should have surprised us by having sora the first to be wiped out by the 13 seekers of darkness now hear me out. You control Kairi fighting off some key players (young xehanort, xemnas, hell maybe even Saix cause that one time. Whatever.). Xion cannot work because shes being forced to and we don't have time for that moment... yet.
In the end, they all lose. Axel falls. Mickey collapses. Ventus down. Everyone but her, Riku, and Aqua. Riku does his support on KAIRI. NOT SORA. Sora is the optimistic fellow. Kairi gravitates to that and seems to be insecure and unsure of the outcome when in a jam. And that is not bad and shouldn't be considered a damsel in distress. It's very human. Kairi may openly feel unequipped and not ready for this. Doubting herself this was too soon. And the first one to "die" is Sora. Aqua then steps in to tell Kairi to relate to failure since she couldn't save her friends she loved (cause sora did that) but tells her even in the darkest hour, one mustn't lose hope. And because Kairi couldn't get up or recollect herself, Riku and Aqua are seemingly perished by the members of the organization defending her. And she watches the bad guys engulf her in darkness fulfilling the prophecy.
Next we still control Kairi for a second chance. She re-completes herself in the final world due to her resolve she couldn't accept defeat. Give her more meaning shes not just the princesses of heart, but her heart is so strong it wouldn't allow her to truly die. She meets the mysterious girl and *LEARNS* her name and the person shes waiting for off-screen or whatever because Nomura loves blue balling us. Then talks to Namine. Expressing her failures and feelings to her because shes the closest person to truly understanding her. And no better choice cause she is her nobody. Namine offers her a do over and will call for help. (Terra.) And the mysterious girl will call for a "friend she knows or heard of" as an additional help. (Ephemer.) Both tell kairi to go and save her friends.
She fights the lich heartless to save everyone till Sora. Young Xehanort stops her and warns her that if she tries to save sora, there will be no saving her. Trying to intimidate her since there is no one to back her up. So Kairi does get scared, and young xehanort taunts her to the point he says something that makes her remember aqua and riku's words. Kairi puts up a brave face and charges forward telling him she will save him and he will defeat them all as he done before. Young Xehanort seemingly brushes it off but shows a subtle look of worried by her words.
We get a do over. Fight the 13 seekers. Get help from lingering terra and keyblade wielders. And Kairi pays that price when the xehanorts are backed in the corner and immediately *KIDNAPS SORA TO ENSURE VICTORY TO FORGE THE X-BLADE*. This fails when they can't kill sora. That is because she gave herself up to the lich to exchange her heart for Sora's, forcing xehanort to take her instead. Xehanort hoped to take out sora to ensure victory is certain. And because Kairi dashed those plans with her life, Sora made sure he was defeated in the end.
How is this an unpopular opinion lol?? It's a brilliant rewrite to a few events in the finale that allow Kairi to shine as a character and STILL have her end up sitting out the final battle, just for a meaningful reason. I absolutely love it.
@@ThrillingDuck well the idea of using Kairi as a playable character for the story versus Riku or Aqua may be a turnoff. I figured Kairi would be fitting cause it makes the player feel at first you trained sora for nothing and the game pushes you to use the bottom of the barrel character left thanks to the bad guys kicking our ass. It feels like we're helpless and now we're in a episode in venturing with Kairi for a good while. Plays the whole music theme of "facing your fears and not thinking twice"
@@knightofanguish7399 Ah, I see what you mean but honestly I think all the fans rooting for Kairi to do something for once in her goddamn life would have loved it. Plus Riku and Aqua have both had their time to shine, both in and out of KH3. Plus she shouldn't be completely helpless right? She's been "training" all this time and she's got that extra heart strength due to her status as a princess like you said :) Anyway, I really enjoyed your rewrite regardless of how others may feel about it.
It's amazing what a fresh perspective and a slight change of direction can do for a narrative. While Sora's scream was priceless (partially cause I didn't see or maybe just didn't remember the trailer it was in so it was a surprise to me) some characters kinda could use a bit more involvement with the chain of events Kairi definitely being one of them especially after that whole "I'll protect you" "No, let me protect you" scene...neither of them actually did protect the other.
Also, let me just say I don't think I'd be able to convey a concept like this through text the way you did very easily so props to you on that.
That is a very, very interesting rewrite, but there is one thing I would like to poit out: it's that Kairi actually did saved Sora from the reaper.
In the last fight in San Fransokyo, young xeanorth said Sora would succumb to the darkness if he continued (much like in DDD) and he went trough with it. After that, he is seen being guided by Kairi into the light and reemerging with every one he saved.
I belive that last scene was Kairi not only saving him, but all of the others by using her princess status to "void" the darkness.
In DDD, he succumbed and needed axel axle and Riku to save him, but this time it wasn't just a plan by the organization ,he was facing death it self and even xeanorth believed there would be no comeback. I think that is a rather under appreciated Kairi scene, where she does one of her most impressive feats.
(Bonus points because that is the exact moment Sora realises he is in love with her, when he remember all the princesses showing their love to loved ones and then looking at Kairi like that.)
Speaking of Xehanort's heart pieces being inside different people. The game really didn't play around with that concept much either. The Organization this time around could have had some interesting dialogue having a piece of Xehanort's persona inside of them, they could have even formed different perspectives and had unique interactions with one another perhaps even pointing out potential flaws in Xehanort's plan. Oh sure original Xehanort was still in charge, but considering that one concept of the heart being unique and unpredictable it could have even been a twist on that chess metaphor in this game that perhaps Xehanort was ultimately PLAYING HIMSELF.
I even had a personal idea for Sephiroth (If he did show up) that perhaps Xehanort considered making him a vessel, but due to Sephiroth's Jenova cells and such he actually suppressed it, and actually made it a part of his power, even being able to form his own keyblade (But then again not all the organization even got keyblades like you said, but at least the suppression bit could have been SOME FLAVOR)
Your rant on Maleficent sums up how I've felt about her since KH 2. Since that game, she just goes around boasting how she's above everyone else, when she's really not. KH 3 has her and Pete walking around, trying to get the black box. That's it. They're not involved in the plot at all. The fact Luxu now has the box himself means Maleficent's appearance was a complete waste. She's just there for fanservice. And not even good fanservice. The type of fanservice where she's just a wannabe villain who isn't really a threat anymore.
Luxu and the foretellers are clearly going to be more of a threat than Maleficent. At this point, I hope KH 4 opens up with her getting killed off. Cause I'm sick of her presence at this point.
Because Maleficent isn't being built up and she wasn't in the epilogue.
Oooof
Or just write a good role to her, make her an ally along YenSid/Merlin/FairyGodmother/etc against the Master of Masters or that she create a new Disney Villains club like in KH1...
She should’ve stayed dead from when you kill her in 1
I feel like this is the only review that actually covers my gripes with the storytelling itself. Almost all of the reviews I've seen seem to be enamored with the ending sequence, and... I'm just not. I can't be. The plot holes and lack of forethought were distracting me in the ending to the point where I barely enjoyed what really should have been knock-out sequences of awesome fights for me. I still enjoyed some moments, but I ended up being incredibly disappointed by the end with the accumulated mediocrity. It's just nice to know that someone else is able to see what I can only feel should be obvious glaring flaws, where it seems like everyone I've listened to outside of my personal friends seem to think the ending hours were just perfect.
This same issue dates back to at least Dream Drop Distance - professional reviewers don't really know the series plot that well, so they focus on the raw gameplay and just trust that things make sense. Unfortunately they don't anymore.
0ctopusComp1etely I felt the same way honestly.
@@ThrillingDuck Your entire Vanitas rant is completely wrong, KhUX disproves your theory about Ventus being some random and weak keyblade wielder and can Xehanort and the other norts not command the heartless; Vanitas isn't beyond his control. Also Vanitas is obsessed with chaos anyways and wants the keyblade war to happen.
@@filthyshrek101bc2 Ok so KhUX retcons are an entirely different can of worms. A retcon is sloppy storytelling no matter how you slice it imo, so Nomura pulling some new shit out of his ass does technically disprove any theories I might have had, but I'd hardly count it as a point against me. When this video came out the canon was that Ven was just some nobody.
Also you are misunderstanding a crucial point I'm making about Vanitas's relationship to the Unversed, and you're not the only one to do that. The difference between Vanitas and the Unversed and like, Xehanort or whoever else and the Heartless, is that the Unversed DERIVE from Vanitas. That entire race and horde of infinitely recyclable minions stem from his very life force.
The Heartless exist independently of Xehanort and the others, and they're not technically "recyclable," they're just replenishable. The Unversed are a PART of Vanitas and he uses the same ones over and over ad infinitum every time they're defeated. This is a fundamental difference.
Can't wait for Kingom hearts 4 coming on the PS7 in 2032
lol people think you’re joking lmao
I will have amnesia by then because I will have no memory of the Kingdom hearts series anymore. 🤔🤨
2132, sorry but I had to correct you.
Yea
Dude, EVERYONE is complaining about Arendelle. You're not alone. XD
Saw this in my recommendations. It's a good video, and I agree with a lot of it.
Personally, I think that the biggest problem that this franchise has is that Nomura is just not a competent greater-scope writer.
KH1 works because the antagonist is a well-done behind the scenes villain who comes in naturally. KH2 works because it expands on the rules of the universe set up in 1 but expands on them in a logically consistent manner. But when we get into the post-2 spinoffs, the rules of the KHVerse get completely crapped on and constantly retconned and/or flat-out ignored to accommodate whatever crazy low-level anime trope Nomura got in his head. It ultimately comes to a head in 3 where we have time-travel, world-splitting, handwaved resurrections, and character flanderizations galore.
Also the appearance of Lingering Will is simultaneously my favorite and most hated scene at once. LW is an entity so powerful that even the most physically powerful incarnation of Xehanort is TERRIFIED of him. But he shows up for one scene just long enough to play Rage Awakened up to its looping point, then promptly disappears forever. Nomura's interview in the Ultimania only tells us what we already could guess-LW stopped existing once Terra came back because there was obviously no longer a reason for it to exist as a separate entity. But where did it go after saving the 7 Guardians? Better yet, why the hell did it not show up the first run around? LW's entire reason for existence is Terra's unyielding rage and hatred towards Xehanort for hurting his friends and stealing his body, and KH2FM shows us that it's quick to show up in the Keyblade Graveyard the instant someone comes in, so why doesn't it come in to kick Terranort's ass again until the timeline is rewritten and Namine tells him "Hey LW, Terranort's gonna kill your friends if you don't do something!"
And let's not overlook how fast Xehanort is forgiven for his crimes. Just A Pancake summed it up best:
"I am actually a misguided good guy"
"Who would ever believe that"
Everyone else: "Okay I believe you"
No Xehanort, you do not claim that excuse when you have ruined lives and nearly destroyed the universe FOUR times. At least it makes slightly more sense in the Japanese script.
But at the end of the day, KH3 suffers in its endgame most from trying to set up KH4, instead of resolving plot points left unfinished from previous games. This game was billed as the end of the Xehanort Saga. It should have tied things up as nicely as possible, with the ominous hint underneath that something else was about to happen.
I'm curious, how is it different in japanise?
@@daniellins4114 From my understanding, the Japanese script has Xehanort saying that he wants to rid the world of both light and darkness, leaving it "blank". Contrast with English where he tries to argue he was saving the light by drowning the world in darkness.
O grow more convinced by the second that Nomura is indeed a very talented character designer, but ultimately a horrid storyteller and director. Honestly, the ffxv fiasco should've been enough for his importance to get severely diminished in squeenix, regardless of kh's success. This series desperately needs a shift in its direction, and Nomura should be limited to work only on what he's capable of, since he's proven time and again to be detrimental to any project he leans his hands on
Yeah he's gotten significantly worse over time. KH is his baby and I'll always be thankful to him for it, but he got completely out of his depth after KH2.
I wouldn't say he's a horrid storyteller, per se. He's got some real talent there. But I do think he definitely thinks he's a lot better than he is (preferring to almost be the only writer on the series rather than cutting back on certain elements and trying to focus more on a more coherent story so that other writers can even begin to start helping), and he fixates on specific elements of his writing to a detrimental degree. From KH2 onward, there have been tons of times in which I can't help but think he needed an editor to smack him with a newspaper and go "bad Nomura, no Nomuraing" to avoid making things unnecessarily convoluted and mind-fuck-like. And on top of that, these moments have been getting worse and more numerous since then, too... almost as if he's lost a lot of his writing and editing team since Square's decade of development hell in the 2010s.
Lingering Will shows up as a result of an optional cutscene lmao. Namine called him from the final world. I have no idea who thought making that option was a good idea.
My theory about Xion is that she didn't have her heart when she was brought back, but when she encountered Sora, her heart went back into her.
Right, so I found out about Namine and LW when the video was almost done, but it still doesn't explain everyone time traveling back a few minutes.
As for Xion, all we can do is speculate I guess.
Not only was this cutscene with Namine optional, but it was incredibly easy to miss considering the low visibility of the stars/fruits that you have to examine, along with most (if not all) of the other optional scenes seeming to be pointless fluff. On top of all that, Namine mentions Terra as an afterthought, making the connections to later events tricky to piece together on an initial viewing. Lingering Will ends up feeling like just a fun little cameo as a result, and not a part of saving Terra that is slightly more complicated than one pretty cool scene.
That's what I figured happened after playing the game cause her heart fused back with Sora but when he showed up it went back to her and she gained control from Xemnas.
@Justin O's Channel That is genuinely the single best explanation I have seen yet. I've always hated the way time travel works in KH, but your explanation does appear to be consistent with the rules of time travel laid out by DDD. I'd argue it still behooved Nomura to make this clearer if it was his intention (since it is INSANELY convoluted), but you're the first person I've seen make heads or tails of this event so good on ya!
@Justin O's Channel Lol I had the same initial reaction to the cutscene just replaying - I thought something was wrong with my game.
Completely agree with the keyblade breaking thing. Why not just say they upgraded their keychains or whatever.
Sora has tons of keyblade variants all by changing the keychain... but somehow Mickey and Riku have their keyblade BREAK, first time we hear of this ever in the series, and the two of them also react so nonchalantly about it, like, "It broke, oh well, lets go pick up a new one from Yen Sid's blacksmith then". Is that how it works now? Break a key and go get one from the blacksmith?
But Axel's break isn't permanent though. It returned at the end scene.
Aqua's keyblade being lost also didn't make good sense. Unless they explain it as her heart being so lost in despair, that she cannot summon one anymore, will make better sense.
Aqua dropped Master Keeper at the end of 0.2 and then it just never was able to be called back. How was she able to summon it in the World of Darkness before that, then?
Yeah I'm not sure key blades should be able to break and I agree the Aqua-losing-her key blade plot made no sense. Maybe the loss of Stormfall is workable because it's in a different realm, but where/when would she have lost Erauqs's blade? I'd give up a trip or two up that mountain in Frozen to see that cut scene lol
While a lot of Kingdom Hearts fans may disagree on aspects of this game, one thing I’m glad we all seem to agree on is that Nomura did Kairi dirty in this game...and in all the games it seems now.
Hi I'm from the future: she managed to did her dirty in her own game! She's useless in Melody of Memory!
@@pascalsimioli6777 very true and sad..
I can understand someone enjoying the attractions for the presentation factor. Personally I was never one to care about that sort of thing, so the attraction just came off as disrupting the flow of combat and creating more invisibility frames for a game that is already pretty easy. While they are optional, I wish they was a skill that turned them off so they didn't clutter the situational command window. It was annoying to go to open a chest only for Sora to summon a Disney ride instead because I pressed triangle a bit too early.
As someone who enjoys both Final Fantasy and Disney, I enjoyed the Disney worlds even without any plot relevance because like you said just exploring the Disney worlds and seeing are heroes interacting with the world is fun.
Wait, people thought Data Riku was the one in the Big Hero 6 world? I assumed Replica Riku from the start.
I pretty much agree with everything you said about the story, both the overall story and Disney stories. I still had fun with the game at the end of the game, so that is what matters.
Organization interactions like in KH3 is what I was hoping to see when 358/2 Days was announced.
Same here. More than once I tried to open a chest and found myself on my way to heaven in a train. If you add the fact that bright lights give me headaches and make me feel nauseous....
Well, I ended up on a train, on my way to kingom come, barfing my stomach contents on the side, all because I wanted to open a chest.
The story hurts me to think about. There are so many questions left unanswered and so many things brought up in KH3 that we have never seen before:
Keyblades break now apparently and Yen Sid has a random stash of keyblades sitting around for them, Marluxia put Sora into a coma for 24 hours but never used this same move before or after this moment, Larxene can build ice labyrinths in mere minutes (I don't even know how or why), Larxene has this ability to summon wind so powerful it throws Sora off a cliff but is never used again, the game constantly states that Sora is back to his weak self again but he's the strongest he's ever been and has the most moves in his arsenal AT THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME, and Kairi and Axel go off into some mystical world that Merlin created where "TIME DOESNT MATTER" and "WE CAN TAKE AS LONG AS WE NEED TO COMPLETE OUR TRAINING" but this is the ONLY TIME THIS IS USED!?!? Why didn't Sora use it to regain his strength (since he's so weak apparently) and THEN go to find the power of waking?! Why didn't Merlin tell Sora about this in KH1 or KH2 where so much was at stake!?
The Hayner, Pence, and Olette scene where they try to "save" Ansem is pathetic. What was the goal? Sneak Ansem the Wise away from evil Ansem by.......having him hop the fence maybe? I don't know what the plan was there. The cutscene with everybody looking at Terra-Nort is also abysmal. Theoretically, Kairi and Axel should be the strongest people since they had INFINITE time to train, but yet the whole squad gets wiped on a 1v7. Everybody stands there doing nothing and Sora was about to literally sacrifice himself to "save" Kairi who's just staring death in the eyes. Half the squad gets wiped out on Terra-Nort alone but they manage to fight 3 organization members at a time? Along with this, just prior to that encounter, they all fought another 1000 heartless/nobody/unversed swarm yet, suddenly, one terra-nort and a new swarm are too difficult. Speaking of that scene, Organization 13 could keep infinitely spawning enemies to fight the 7 lights. Organization 13 has spawned so many swarms against Sora, but now they all of a sudden stop when Yen Sid comes in? And, as you pointed out, they apparently don't even need to clash apparently to forge the X-Blade so why not just infinitely spawn enemies until they can't fight. And how did Sora beat the final heartless swarm? Ephemer came out of nowhere and the power of the Union X did it? I assume Organization 13 was stunned at the levels of ass-pull that was and said "screw it, no more enemies."
Even ignoring the final segment, you do nothing in this game for most of the time. Going to Hercules makes sense since Herc had a falling out and recovered so they went to him for advice. Literally, every single world after that has no purpose.
"Why do you think we're here?"
"I don't know."
Even the "princesses of heart" and the "box" have 0 meanings as well. Just random crap for future installments I guess.
The whole game is strange by having cutscenes where Sora is weak or the Organization is abysmally strong but then you get into the gameplay and it's not even a contest. There's a major disconnect in gameplay to story and, along with this, there were many things that weren't even answered until the DLC. Also, why is Xion back? Not a single soul in the Organization remembers this person, knows about this person, knows whether or not she's a traitor like Axel or Roxas, and yet they say "yeah sure let's bring her back." And of course, she inevitably betrays the Organization. Why does she even fight Axel in the first place? Did she not see that it was Axel with her damn hood on? She stops Xehanort from killing Axel but she still fights him? Idk anymore.
Why did it seem like half the Organization members didn't care about being in the Organization? Why was Larxene in? Just for the ride apparently. Demyx? He betrays the Organization anyways. Vexen betrays them as well but he actually wants to atone. Marluxia? Why is he in it again? Vanitas? He's darkness, therefore evil, therefore must fight. Luxord? He gives Sora a "card" to use for a future installment. I can't even describe the number of questions I have from that. Xion? She doesn't even know why she's there. Everyone else is either Xehanort themselves or have a hate boner for the other side (Saix). And why are all the Organization members being so nice when dying? Riku says he'll "miss" Ansem? WHAT!?!?!? Also how come when a member dies, they pause the fight to show a cutscene? Takes away the pacing yet again.
There's so much more I could think of but this is all I remember off the top of my head.
Im not a fan of long comments, but mannn was i enjoying this one. You could've kept going and i would've kept reading. I agree with everything you said
No one ever brings this up: Tangled is one of the few Disney films I haven't seen. If you play this game without knowing the movie, Flynn's name changes to Eugene between cutscenes.
Outrageously confusing if you're old and fell behind on Disney releases.
Lol that didn't even occur to me because I just know the movie but yeah, not only are the direct adaptations poor - they're borderline impossible to even follow if you don't know the source material. Shoot, if I hadn't seen Frozen I would have literally left that world like "wtf even is the plot of this film?"
With Arendelle if they found a way to condense the mountain area. Maybe remove the labyrinth entirely and then have you start the world in castle town PROPER and meet Anna just as Elsa runs off this could have been much better. We don't even need to group to go find Christoff. Maybe he's there for the ceremony. It isn't anything KH hasn't done before. I don't need the whole "But Anna can't fight" BS. Neither can Christroff really. There could have been interesting ways they could have contributed to the party
I cared about the story until the release of KH3 because I thaught all the convoluting plots would pay off in the Finale. Back Cover had NO relevance at all! It was just a " Hey guys, there is a mobile game that May Or May not be VERY IMPORTANT TO THIS STORY! SO GET IT RIGHT NOW!" I just can not enjoy this mess. It's just baiting for things that are yet to happen and I'm too old to just blindly accept this money making.
48:23 Kairi wasn't the only one who was done dirty by Nomura.
Who else was? You?
@@Gemnist98 Basically any main character who is not named Sora or Roxas.
This line of thinking kinda irritates me. Some people think that since KH3 is a game where everyone comes together, it should do exactly what Infinity War did and made the entire thing an ensemble fest. This game is clearly one where Sora is the main character. Asking for the game to make him equal to everyone else is basically saying "there need to be nine intertwining storylines for each of the main characters, and they need to be 30 hours in length each". Besides, if this were Infinity War - Xehanort would be the protagonist. I mean, really?
Kairi was still done dirty though.
@@Gemnist98 They still didn't need to make every character horribly weak just so Sora could save them. How do Riku and Mickey hold off three opponents individually, but Aqua and Ven, and Axel and Kairi, can't even hold their own in a 2v2? It doesn't make sense.
Roxas was done dirty, too. He was almost nonexistent in this game. Even Kairi had more in-game presence than Roxas.
The idea of losing keyblades is stupid in the first place.
This video voiced just about every single thought I was having while playing endgame for KH3. I enjoyed it when I wasn't thinking too much about it or just going, "that's just how Kingdom Hearts is," but when I thought things through, even just a little...stuff just don't make no sense. I could not take that Heartless Tornado as a serious threat when just before it I was fighting a literal endless army of Heartless with just Sora, Donald, and Goofy without any of them batting an eye. But sure, 7 Guardians of Light plus Donald and Goofy perished at a tornado of Heartless. My brother tried to justify it as, "they're fighting literal darkness itself in it's pure form," or something. But like, not long before this fight, we just save Aqua from literal darkness INSIDE darkness. Like, after all that the characters have been through and overcome, how am I supposed to believe THIS is what does them in?
I couldn't even believe SORA could believe it. I've seen this kid basically commit suicide in order to return his friend to life, and he was back on his own size 47 feet like five minutes later. But he loses his mind because a swarm of Heartless grabs his friends? He didn't even actually see them die or disappear as their hearts were taken.
Toy Box literally could have been Justified with the same premise as literally any magical gate/portal in the game. Just have the portal open after the boss fight. Have Sora and friends return to the real world which is just another Andy's room but with subtle differences. The windows are shut and maybe put the save point in an obscure area to show that to move about they can't just be in plain sight.
Have a portal that says...Return to Toy Box. Not that hard.
EDIT to stop spam: The breaking of Keyblades really rub me the wrong way too. Wasn't a keyblade always mentioned as being will of one's heart given form; facsimiles of the X-blade. Any other keyblade is just the form of the heart being changed by keychains. Why couldn't Riku just get a new keychain instead of breaking a representation of his heart. You may as well break the Kingdom Key. Which they did when they broke the KK-D. Which you'd think would have huge ramifications since it's the Keyblade of the Realm of Darkness.
All keychains are different forms of the same keyblade. Personally my only problem was aqua wielding mikey's but i kinda let that slide since the anti aqua fight was really good.
Oh, wow.
So, one of the main issues I have with Toy Box is that it feels pretty purposeless in general. They're mostly just going to the mall because they hope they can eventually stumble across something, and then you just go back and forth without much actually happening.
If YX revealed at about half an hour in that they were in a digital world and that there was actually an escape portal somewhere else in the mall, it would have done SO much to give a real purpose to the group's exploration. Bonus points if we actually got to see them reuniting with the rest of the Toy Story characters only for YX to grab Buzz and flee back into the digital world for the climax. Then at the end of the world, Rex is like "guys, we can literally go inside a computer world - I know it was scary when we didn't know what was going on, but now that we can just enter and leave at any time, isn't that AWESOME?"
So... yeah, that's an amazing idea.
God, I wish the actual writers had put in this level of thought.
While I understand that the spin-off titles are important to the overall series, I find it disappointing that disclaimers need to be added when referring to spin-off titles as such. It seems most people don't understand what a spin-off actually is, fundamentally a derivative work. The extent to which it expands upon established characters, themes, or story is irrelevant. _Chain of Memories_ is clearly spin-off, it features entirely unique gameplay systems (card combat) and a largely disposable story. _Birth by Sleep,_ _358/2 Days,_ again feature entirely unique gameplay systems and disposable story while also focusing on or introducing entirely new supporting characters. This trend applies to all of the titles which would be considered spin-offs; they're expansive and exploratory, but until _Kingdom Hearts 3_ were by no means "required reading". Each of the individual titles, when paired with the main entries was capable of standing on it's own while adding extra detail to the universe.
While _Kingdom Hearts 3_ didn't need to exclude characters, themes, and events from these other titles, it did a great disservice to itself in how it integrated the elements into it's narrative. Sora needs to regain his power (again), worse handling than the start of _KH2_ but not outright requiring player knowledge of _Dream Drop Distance._ The black box as a MacGuffin works (even if ultimately pointless) without player knowledge of _Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover._ The time traveling enemies, and return of previously killed characters does not work without previous knowledge (I'd argue it doesn't work well even if you do know). This is not even to get into pacing problems.
To be fair, Birth by Sleep was the game most foreshadowed by Kingdom Hearts 2, and I'd argue it's probably the most important of the non-numbered titles in that respect. Of course that was gonna be crucial, given it was the game set up by the last numbered title. Still, I can see why having them as "required reading" would upset people. I just think BBS is the one case where it was to be expected.
Considering _BBS_ connections to _KH2_ kind of makes it "Kingdom Hearts Zero" as it was the game that contextualized the previous entries as the "Xehanort Saga". The "required reading" aspect isn't in and of itself a problem, just the way that the story has been handled overall and how that plays into _KH3_ specifically. The criticism is that the inclusion of the elements from past (non-numbered) entries isn't handled well, and it doesn't help in a story that most would argue is already weak. @@Dorked
Yeah, the story thing isn't true. If you haven't played COM before playing KH2, you're going to be infinitely confused (yet people still say it has the best, most coherent story - SMH). 358/2 Days also fleshes out Roxas as a character, and explains who exactly he is and where he has been, which is critical knowledge for KH2. BBS stands a little bit better, but still explains crucial plot elements of KH1. Hell, even Coded sets up the events of DDD, which in turn sets up KH3.
You're right about the gameplay thing, but I'd say the story elements outweigh those gameplay ones.
I think you misunderstood. _BBS_ expands on _KH1_ (recontextualizes the whole series quite frankly) and _358/2 Days_ expands on _KH2_ and these titles came out after those games to expand those stories and thus could not be required to 'understand' them. Even _COM_ isn't required going into _KH2_ as the Roxas section of the game provides enough context to understand the relevant events of _COM._
Of course, _Coded_ and particularly _3D_ are different beasts, especially with how they played into _KH3_ and if the team had released _3D_ as _KH3_ it would address a lot of issues. It seems to me that _Dream Drop Distance_ is the release that 'broke' the story formula and a large part of why _KH3_ struggled so much to bring everything together in ways that past games had. @@Gemnist98
If you strip any numbers from the titles and simply play them all in chronological order, the experience is better, but it's still fairly clear that _KH3_ suffers from trying to rush and tie all the other story threads together. If _3D_ had addressed plot threads (like rescuing Terra, Aqua, Ventus, Xion, Roxas, or whatever) rather than just introducing more, _KH3_ would have been better situated to tell it's story.
@@ArtumTsumia BBS recontextualizing the whole series is exactly why it is required reading and why most consider it to be "Kingdom Hearts 0" (not really me, but I digress). The prologue section of KH2 really only gives the basics of Roxas' character; he's essentially a plot device when the game is taken on its own, a MacGuffin with human anatomy to make people care about him, and Days serves the purpose of making him an actual character. Meanwhile, the events of COM are NEVER explained in KH2 despite it coming out before KH2; Sora and co. have no memories of the event, and neither Mickey, Riku, Namine, DiZ, nor anyone else bothers to tell them anything about what happened; all the three know is that people briefly lost their memories of them.
Had DDD brought back all of the characters at once, it would ruin the emotional impact of having these characters coming together in KH3. What DDD did what explain the mechanics that would take place in KH3, some of which worked (Nobodies growing Hearts) and some of which didn't (the time travel). The only plot thread it introduced was the next Keyblade War, and even then, Coded was the first one to mention it was going to happen. Some have suggested resolving plot threads regarding the main characters earlier than the climax of the game, but I think that could only work in Aqua's case. You can't do Ven earlier since Ven could only be awoken via the Power of Waking, which would cut Sora's journey short. Maybe Roxas could have come back via the Datascape, but since his heart was with Sora it makes sense to do it later when a Replica for him was made, and it also creates more emotional impact when he appears and reunites with everyone else. As for Terra and Xion, both of them were in such bad positions that they needed KH3 to set up their eventual restorations.
KH3 has pacing issues, sure, but trying to resolve all of the plot threads is not what caused the story to feel wank. In fact, it was the opposite. It pulled an Age of Ultron and told a single story while simultaneously setting up the larger one WAY too much. Had they resolved the things from the X games, the story would have felt like a singular, cohesive narrative (which most of the Kingdom Hearts games do, except DDD). Instead, it feels like an expansion of a larger narrative it was intending to conclude.
I could probably write an essay in response to this video but instead I'll say this was very well done and I enjoyed it thoroughly and I definitely hope to see more from you.
Much obliged! Glad you enjoyed it :)
The first part was interesting, the second part was actually so cathartic, I really needed it
"DID YOU THINK ANY OF THIS THROUGH?!"
He obviously didn't think it through and just thought it would be cool.
45:00 This right here. Can anyone please explain to me what sora and party's plan was? If the objective was to prevent Xehanort from achieving the X-blade, through means of clashing 13 seekers vs 7 hearts, why is Sora literally just going along with gathering 7 people to fight Xehanort's 13? Why wasn't the objective simply to find a way to directly defeat Xehanort without initiating the ritual? I thought the story made it pretty clear that it didn't matter who won during the fight, just so long as they clashed that xehanort would get the x-blade, so why did Sora just decide to go anyway?
If you think about it, isn't the concept of 13 vs. 7 really stupid? never mind the fact that it's the most disproportionate ratio of good guy vs bad guy, wouldn't there be a lot of unforseeable outcomes that wouldn't work in Xehanort's favor?
For example, in the game Xehanort states that in order for the X-blade to be forged, he needs 13 keys forged from 13 clashes-meaning out of a group of 20 people, 13 battles must have occurred to achieve the x-blade.
Now, let's say for instance, that in the unlikely event that Xehanort and his cohorts succeed over sora's group, and all 7 hearts of light were defeated; that would only leave Xehanort with 7 keys, but he needs 5 more. So what then? Does he grab more random hearts of light to fight until they reach 13 clashes? Because then it wouldn't be THE 7 HEARTS, if the roster can change on a whim.
they would still have a few keys short anyway if Sora didn't retrieve all 7 lights, and went with their backup plan of gathering 7 princesses of light, the results would end the same way.
So does he intentionally let some of them win, by sacrificing some of his own members, because that kind of risk would potentially end with losing.
There's just some many variables that could go wrong, I'm surprised at the sheer lack on Sora's part, he literally allowed it to happen just bringing all 7 of them into the battle.
And Sora's not even the thinker of the group. Why did Yen Sid encourage everyone to go along with this if he's so smart? Nothing about the clashes was truly thought out.
(Actual leaked conversation between Yen Sid (Y) and Sora (S))
Y: "We must gather exactly seven guardians of light to battle Xehanort."
S: "Why seven? Why don't we go in with fewer people?"
Y: "Because Xehanort can just capture the new princesses of light you dumbass."
S: "So if Xehanort will be able to forge the X-Blade anyway, why don't we go in with *more* people?"
Y:
Y: "No. Exactly seven lights."
S: "But we'd have way better chances at winni-"
Y: "EXACTLY SEVEN LIGHTS"
*_Kingom Hearts 3 HISHE_*
Master Xehanort: Sora have you gathered your Guardians?
Sora: Yes I've brought all Seven-
Master Xehanort: Good
Sora: Thousand.
Master Xehanort: Huh? What?
Sora: You wanted me to gather 7 Guardians so I brought 7,000. Also meet my friends; Beast, Zeus, Genie, Hercules, Sully, Woody, and Captain Jack Sparrow.
Master Xehanort: ...Well...Shit.
@@kizuuwu7563 but he lets donald and goofy go
@@redpenguin111 Donald and Goofy are just part of Sora at this point, change my mind
Dude comes back 4 years after his first and only video he's ever uploaded to rip KH3 to shreds lmao savage.
Xigbar “ I’m already half xehanort “
Me “ wow what a plot twist no way to add a plot twist more stupid “
Also xigbar “ I’m half luxu”
Me 💀
He is all of the Luxu with a piece of Xehanort's heart in Braig's body.
- Wow, half Xehanort ! What are the implications?
- The what now?
- I mean you're half possessed by the villain, what's the difference with fully possession and no possession at all?
- well I'm uhm...
- You just have yellow eyes uh?
- Yeah.
- What a plotwist.
Namine talked with Terra hence why The Lingering Will showed up. It's a missable cutscene in the final world. The ending was also pretty problematic with me.
it's a missable cutscene that started off as a plot detail from a irl concert in Japan, RIP KH fans lol
Aside from my other complaints, nomura has always kind of been japenese george lucas, worse I would argue, but the platform he's on far more complements his storytelling capabilities.
He's basically the Tite Kubo of video games.
23:00 it’d have been cool if Sora had continued to be pushy with Elsa and frustrated her enough to create the ice labyrinth to prevent him from following her, since she made it clear that she wanted to be alone. Then Larxene could have shown up at the palace and talked about whether Elsa would use her powers for good or evil, and have actually made sense since you could clearly see the possibility of the latter in the fact that she trapped you in a labyrinth full of heartless~
Also, imagine if, since Sora did all the romance-y stuff with Rapunzel, she had actually started to fall for him instead of Flynn, causing him to get jealous and challenge Sora 1v1, giving you a legendary 3rd Disney character fight(if you count all the Titans as one fight). There could have been so much more wit and charm in this game that it’s almost painful to imagine how good things could have been. Like, instead of Rapunzel’s tear saving Flynn, Sora just said “oh no worries, I’ve got Cure :)” I’d have laughed my whole butt off in that scenario~
Also also, imagine if, when Young Xehanort first showed up in Toy Box, all the Toy Story toys went lifeless, considering YX appears as a human? Knowing how the toys work in their movies, not only would this have made sense, but would have been totally hilarious, considering YX would still definitely know that they were alive. He could have even called them out on it and caused them to give up the charade, thus still making it possible for Woody to denounce all his anime BS later in the world~
Justin O's Channel Not only did I want to fight Buzz, I expected to. For a game that was supposed to be an epic Disney/FF crossover, three Disney villain fights(if you count the Titans as one fight)(And you count Marshmallow as a Disney villain)? /No/ FF characters save for the Moogle? And no I’m not counting them bitch ass statues at the beginning of Olympus or them Toy Story ads~
This became my favourite video on the entire internet when you pointed out Axel's broken keyblade inconsistency. I haven't laughed so hard in a while. It's like, the nonsense they're putting all these characters through completely outweighed the ridiculousness of Axel somehow getting his keyblade back, and caused not only the *creators* to forget that happened literally 12 seconds ago, but it also caused me to forget about it too. Thank you SO MUCH for actually acknowledging the plot holes and inexplicable inconsistencies in this stupid, dearly beloved series. (ha)
Turns out that the reason there was a repeat when everyone died was because Sora used the power of waking to bring everyone back. He uses it twice, I believe. Everyone remembers it for the instant they come back because it's etched on their hearts, but stop remembering it because it's actually a time travel trick, and their hearts travelled back to before their bodies were destroyed and before they experienced the disaster with Terranort. It's so confusing and badly executed, even though it's actually a pretty neat trick, and explains why Sora suddenly vanishes in the end. he DID abuse the power of waking by bringing everyone back not once but TWICE. He would've kept bringing everyone back had Namine not made contact with the Lingering Will which, btw, is a terrible thing to make an optional cutscene.
Hey, thanks for the details about the Power of Waking. A friend of mine actually sent me a link to an interview with Nomura regarding some Ultimania guide details just last night.
Honestly some details (such as the Power of Waking "creating a time singularity" as he puts it) just sound like a 6 year old pulling some bullshit out of his ass to cover up some really blatant errors, but even if that was his intention from the beginning then it absolutely BEHOOVED him to include that information in the game somehow. Also does The Final World exist outside of time or something then? Because even with Namine contacting Lingering Will, it wouldn't really follow for him to show up at a point in time where he didn't before unless that is the case.
ThrillingDuck
My pleasure. One KH fan to another... we gotta help each other out through these maddening developments.
It’s just so bad, though. I have no idea how the Final World works. I have no idea how Naminé and Sora are there but no one else is, or why Ven’s Chirithy is there... It’s the point before you die, but somehow you’re not dead even if you lose your heart and your body?! Shouldn’t Terra be there instead of in the armour as the Lingering Will? It would’ve made so much more sense if Sora had stumbled across Terra (at least in armour form) and connected with him and brought him back to the realm of light just in time to keep everyone from dying again. I would’ve enjoyed that.
Bottom line, if the story you create is so convoluted to the point where the player can’t just play the actual games (including the “spinoffs”) and have everything make total sense, and they *have* to look up freaking *interviews* in order to understand what’s going on, you’ve failed miserably at weaving a good story. Interviews do *not* make up for a gross lack of coherency in the game, and no other series would be able to get away with such critically bad writing this successfully; but people dismiss it all as “it’s just Kingdom Hearts,” and everyone goes home with a 10/10 “outstanding!” review.
...And all this outrage is coming from someone who’s been in love with this series for a good decade. I’m so tired of incoherency and inconsistency. But I appreciate you seeing what’s really going on. So many people are blinded by nostalgia, and give this game glowing reviews without touching on any of the plot holes or major inconsistencies. It’s just as you said... if you turn your brain off, it’s super enjoyable. There’s lots of good stuff going on, but all sense goes down the toilet a soon as you take a closer look at what’s actually transpiring. =_=
@@themagicpencilcase8715 100% Couldn't have put it better myself.
Gosh this was great. The ending made me angry as well. Another thing that irked me, one of the biggest honestly, was that despite the talk in DDD of most organization members being unfit for vessels they suddenly decide "Oh the two Castle Oblivion backstabbers, and this girl who backstabbed us and turned Roxas against us, they'll do." There is no explanation as to why Xion, Marluxia, Larxene, Luxord, Demyx, and hell even Saix were suitable vessels. They all act completely the same as they did before being norted. Is the yellow eyes just contact with darkness or being brought through time? We still know _nothing_ about who Demyx, Luxord, and Larxene even are. It reeks of Nomura choosing an arbitrary number and scrambling to fill it.
The gameplay was fun but not KH2 good. And the story really soured me on it. It's as if they thought no one would turn out for KH4 unless they had a cliffhanger and a bunch of meaningless foreshadowing in the secret reports and certain cutscenes.
Yeah back when DDD first launched I was really expecting some original characters to be in the new Org but NOPE, let's just recycle a bunch of backstabby non-wielders. Demyx especially was like the LAST character I expected to see in this "new and improved" Organization. The cowardly slacker? Seriously?
The ending wasn’t that bad in my opinion. Besides, we’ve already known for years that this wouldn’t be the last game.
@@BobbyTheGamerOfJUSTICE Yeah but they could have still given players a happy ending to hold us over until KH4 and still have ominous undertones to go along with it. LIke you can still have the Luxu scenes while having Sora be happy and content on Destiny Islands for the time being. There was no need to add more drama by having Sora disappear.
@devil I can understand that.
This probably even backfired. I know I have no interest in KH4 because it's just going to "end" the same way. I felt exhausted by the end of this game.
I think Rapunzel's world could have had more impact if they had tied it closer to sora and kairi's relationship. For instance, when Sora is dancing with Rapunzel, he could see her as Kairi for a brief moment. It would have been nice to have moments like this implemented in worlds that build on Sora's feelings for Kairi.
Kinda like he did in Halloween town in KH2.
Or maybe, have Kairi going with Sora to a world for a change and experience that first hand.
But god forbid having both of them interacting with each other in game, that way the creators would have to write a compelling relationship between the two, instead of just stating it.
Scala ad Caelum is a visual representation of Xehanort's memories of it, in Xehanort's heart... that's probably why Xehanort can change the orientation of the world.
Xehanort was changing the orientation in the real world as well.
Also now you can travel to memories? Through a time travel portal? It's really too close to the "data concept" since memories are just data and they're blurring the lines between the different mechanics because they don't have the faintest idea of the rules of their own gimmicks.
One of my biggest problems with the game is how Sora never uses any of his cool abilities in cutscenes. Like there are so many instances where Air Stepping would have been useful, but instead he just runs at the enemy. He only uses Keyblade Transformations in one cutscene from the Big Hero 6 world, and it annoyed me because he never used one in a cutscene again.
You can tell that the cutscene team didn't bring their A game here. Almost every action scene uses really basic character animation, and it's legitimately less impressive than many of the action scenes in KH1, during the days before devs learned to have their characters BE more animated.
Still can't believe Vexen turned out to be a good guy all this time when he was portrayed to be an unethical asshole before. There's something fishy about him still, despite how much he claims he's been wanting to atone, he still played an integral role in making Master Xehanort's plan a success by providing him replicas for his past selves, atonement my a**.
My speculation about Xion is that Vexen made her again from the data Xemnas collected before, since she's starting from 0 I guess Xehanort thought she didn't need norting. Upon getting close to Sora I guess he magically transferred her heart and memories back to her even thought there's no good visual cue of such. I hope Final Mix elaborates on Xion's return further cause as is it felt very vague.
Wow, I'm just seeing this now but post-Re:Mind you fucking called it with Xion dude!
i wish someone with good story director could reboot kingdom hearts from zero with entirely different story, and make it a lot better and not complex, no spin off or something like that.
the only good thing about kingdom hearts IMO is just gameplay and content they offer to us.
kingdom hearts 3 is good game, it’s just lack of content.
KH2FM is still best. END OF STORY FOLKS!
The real ending
How exactly?
@@itv4713 im guessing cuz it doesnt include all the BS
Back when Nomura baiting future stories while concluding the main game's story.
@@itv4713 KH1, CoM and KH2 already works as a cohesive story with no major threads left unresolved. Everything that came after is effectively retroactive storytelling.
I think Nomura planned for Xigbar to have a more important role, in 2010 after BBS came Nomura started saying to pay for very close attention to xigbar.
BUT HOW was important and THIS is only a minor step in that direction. I'm sure in the future he'll be programmed as a formidable foe, but for now he's gonna need expanding
Yeah I got into this game cause of the Disney Characters and I was disappointed they barely showed Maleficent, they never showed the black box lagged on Xehanort battle, no Kairi at the end, expecting Terra to face off against Xehanort one last time. No end of things. and I had never said this before at the end of a Kingdom Hearts game but at the end of playing KH3, despite the Movie like graphics/cutscenes Pirates of the Caribbean, Hercules and Winnie the Pooh world. All I said was this "This is what we get after 14 years (11 in my case). All I can say is I agree with you mate, glad I'm not the only one that thinks this and great video.
The Issues with KH3, I think have something to do with what you said last video.
That being that while criticisms of the series are common NOW...They didn't come up til The game was already in production. Up to that point he was getting non stop praise for what he was doing so why would he change it?
Its possible that he did hear about them some time mid production but by then it would have been to late, Wich would explain Axels "He represents the Audince" jokes.(unless, even better, that was unintended)
EDIT:Thankyou!
I can't quite agree with that. Most of the issues in KH3 were present and criticized all the way back to KH2, if not CoM. And they definitely didn't get better as new games came out - quite the opposite.
Not to mention that there were, what, six years between DDD and KH3? That's PLENTY of time for rewriting. Different dialogue alone can make a huge difference without requiring a ton of dev resources, and then a bit of scene editing for the really big stuff... it's very doable.
I think the real concern is that Nomura has the series in an iron grip because his style of writing is too insane for others to be able to follow along, and he will absolutely not compromise on that, yet he was also stretched super thin throughout the 2010s. He's also just not as good as Kojima, but seems to desperately want to be Kojima anyway.
Ayyyy, you finally made a new video! I've been looking forward to your thoughts on KH3 after watching your other KH video! I was not disappointed! Also, I'd love to see your video idea on Mother Gothel, as well as more content in the future!
Thanks man, I really appreciate it! The Gothel video won't be nearly as long as this haha, but now that I've gotten my feet wet with the editing process it shouldn't be anywhere near 5 years until the next video lol. Still don't expect regular uploads in the near future but I'm gonna write some scripts in the background and see what I can do :)
Awesome love your kingdom hearts videos keep em coming subbed
Agree with you on the lack of darknesses having keyblades. One of the things I was hoping for to see in KH3, was to see Xemnas, Xigbar, Ansem all somehow finally get a keyblade (maybe thanks to the Xehanort part in their vessels). Even if they still prefer their keyblade transformed - so Xemnas always goes around with his 2 lightsabers, and Xigbar still prefers the transformation arrowguns, but it would have been sweet to see them occasionally morph back into a blade form, just for cutscenes and storytelling consistency... but I guess designing new weapons would be too much hassle?
But I noticed Axel's keyblade does become chakrams in one of his ground combos. Short though his combat gameplay was... I did kind of spot two rings of fire flying from Axel's hands. It's cool he knows how to transform his keyblade... faster than Riku and Mickey do... and yet his keyblade got deactivated by Xemnas' dark touch of ouchie ouch. (I say deactivated cos Lea uses his keyblade in the later scenes again to close Kingdom Hearts and stuff)
Xigbar, at least, actually wanted a keyblade all along and stated he only rejoined the Organization because Xehanort promised to give him The Gazing Eye. (Though considering the ending, this was probably just a half-truth.)
Anyway, I always sorta assumed that, as a general rule, Heartless and Nobodies actually can't use keyblades - that being a complete being is normally a requirement. The exceptions were Roxas, Xion, Vanitas and Lingering Will.
Roxas gets a pass since he is overtly stated to be a unique anomaly as Nobodies go, and the same can be assumed to apply to Xion. I'm not even totally sure exactly what kind of being Vanitas was supposed to be (a sort of super-Unversed, maybe) but let's say the normal rules don't apply to him either since he was kind of a unique being. Lingering Will is weird, though, since I _guess_ it was a _sort_ of Nobody, but not quite? I don't really know what to make of that.
Still, in all other cases it seems people lose the ability to use keyblades when they become Heartless and Nobodies. Ansem/Xenmas is the most prominent example, but Xenmnas also strongly implied that Marluxia, Larxene, Demyx and Luxord are all former keyblade wielders and that he had assembled them for a hidden purpose relating to that. Which is... intriguing, because that appears to have nothing to do with Xehanort's main master plan. I guess it's possible that Xehanort suspected something was going on behind the scenes and, via Xenmas, intended those four to be some sort of backup plan just in case.
Then consider that the Foretellers now _appear_ to be positioned to be the new main antagonists in the next game, plus Xigbar who finally got his keyblade after all. Notably, Eraqus "new game" included seven dark pieces, implying Ava and the Master of Masters are going to be in on it as well. So we're looking at a lot of new keyblade people here.
See, I think Nomura is all for having more bad guys with keyblades, he's just been saving it until now.
By the way, if we add up the seven "dark pieces" and the four Org13 secret keybladers, we get a total of eleven. Now, it's not clear if the latter four are going to be antagonists, but it's worth noting that Sora's faction stands at a total of ten keyblade wielders as of the end of KH3. (Including Sora since we all know he's coming back.) So, that's kinda neat.
Boy, glad to see the wait was worth it!
This is one of my favorite reviews of KH3 ever. Keep up the great content!
Hey thanks a lot! Glad you enjoyed. I'll try haha
@@ThrillingDuck Well, even if you never get back to it, I really appreciate the fact that you called out the lack of closure. I wasn't able to actually play the game until recently and robbed is exactly the word I would use when it comes to the ending. Also, that paopu fruit joke with Maleficent and Kairi was awesome. The paopu fruit that Sora and Kairi shared didn't get enough attention in the game too btw lol
@@roromaniac8 Lol well you're the only person so far to acknowledge the paopu fruit joke so thanks for that haha. I do think I'll make more at some point though - it's just a matter of inspiration. What little I've created have all been passion projects, so as soon as something I'm passionate about gets a reaction out of me or I feel as though it hasn't been adequately covered by others I will almost certainly get my thoughts out there :) I appreciate your encouragement and support in the meantime!
😂😂😭😂 The fact that you kept your cool the wholeee time until the end. I feel that. I couldn't stop laughing, mainly cause how true everything you said is. I know its been awhile since kh3 came out, but sign me up for the next video oh kh. I enjoyed this one
Very well spoken!! You brought up a lot of good points.
Just one thing though. Maybe it was just me but when I saw the scene where Terranort said "The X Blade will still be forged" my immediate thought was he was deciding to just kill them off and go after the princesses instead. Like he was telling them everything they did was for nothing, they will die here and everything they tried to protect is going to be lost too. Which filled me with dread as I think it would Sora and Co.
And may I say that I was genuinely hoping at the end of Toy Box they left it like that because they were implying we would be coming back in the next saga to fix things. Then when I saw it all fixed itself in the credits I was actually disappointed a little because that wasnt the case.
But the thing with Xion bugged me the most about how they got her as a darkness. Even Marluxia references her when he Larxene and Demyx are talking. "One of them was real enough to join our ranks" How does he know that?! He shouldnt remember her and he wouldnt have known her nature before going to CO. Which means he was explained this by someone who still shouldnt remember her.
My initial thought was maybe that Vexen still had notes on her or something and those notes probably wouldnt have been effected by Xion disappearing and that triggered him to remember? And then he told Xemnas? Which caused him to remember? Somehow? And its also not explained though where this new Xion came from. She has no face and only begins to remember stuff after coming into contact with Sora and Axel. Which made me think this was a replica of Xion after she gained the Keyblade but before she began to have a sense of self. So an autometon pretty much. And thats why we never saw her in any worlds because they didnt want to risk sending her out and getting exposed to Sora. But then why have her at all?? Thats risky! Was a keyblade necessary? Or even keyblade potential maybe was good enough hence 9-12 even though we dont see them use it. But then Xemnas says they to the new Xion when she tries to stop him that Axel and her had been friends back then. Which then made me wonder if she was time traveled instead??? But that makes so sense! It was just a mess.
Great video! The part about Kairi is specially dissapointing, she deserved a big role in this game and instead she's just a bad plot device.
Just one little nitpick, Aqua's keyblade might seem like a plot hole, but in this case it has some logic. So, Aqua did lose her keyblade (along with her armor) at the end of BBS when she used it to save Terranort after he fell to the darkness. As you say, the different keyblade forms are apparently just different chains for the same keyblade, and we could argue that you can't summon your keyblade from one realm to the other because the doors are closed and all that. That said, by this logic she probably should be able to summon it back when she returned to the Realm of Light, which we haven't seen yet.
However, the fact that keyblades can physically break now is just ridiculous, they didn't even try to explain it.
Speaking of Aqua's armor... Did Nomura just totally forget about it? And why can't Sora and Riku get one, too? That's the only thing I asked to this game :'(
Honestly, Kairi was the only disappointing thing when it comes to the story to me. Everything else was great.
@@BobbyTheGamerOfJUSTICE That's blind fanboyism talking. Apply more critical thought to the rest of the story, and a LOT more than just Kairi's role in it will fall apart.
@the mark Oh I know there’s much more wrong with the story. But a lot of those things can be subjective whether they were bad or not and Kairi was really the one that actually ruins the experience for me. Everything else I can let slide.
For example, They not explaining the power of Waking very well.
The rushed ending.
The god awful pacing.
Characters not getting enough screen time.
Not enough questions being answered.
Sora dying.
Xehanort basically giving up.
Xion coming back despite being forgotten.
Vexen being a good guy suddenly.
I thought she lost it at the end of 0.2 (kind of stupid too because its laying right next to her when Destiny Islands reforms itself), but that begs the question why no other character besides Sora saw it on the beach at that exact moment.
I mean KH2 implied Selphie, Wakka, and Tidus don't play at the island that much anymore. But Riku, Xion, and Roxas who visited the island never saw it laying there on the beach in 358/2 Days. Even Riku, Sora, and Kairi didn't see it post KH2 when they finally return home together.
Waited a VERY long time for this review! Good points all around. Would love to hear your thoughts on different parts of the series
Dude you summarized every single problem I have with this game perfectly. It seriously feels like you peeked into my brain. It even made me happy when you mentioned the issue with Sora being depicted as the "weak" keyblade master, because I got concerned about that being a story element back in 3D and sure enough, it continued in this game, much to my dismay.
Lots of excellent points in this video. Awesome job.
Thanks a lot man, glad you enjoyed it!
Sora, Donald and goofy had such amazing chemistry that I teared up so many times while playing. They need to hug more
WHoa. A second video. And Im only just now checking your channel
My timing could not be much more insane. I mean if I clicked this yesterday it would be but yeah.
watched the whole thing, agreed with it all to the very last second. man thank you for putting my feelings toward this game into words
Hey, thanks for watching. Glad you enjoyed it!
I agree with most of what you said. And i couldnt agree more about the ending. I wished the ending was more of a conclusion than just the setup for the next Saga, I felt so off after finishing the game in the fact it leaves you in suspense, rather then just have all the characters with a happy ending THEN show some epilouge cutscenes to show whats next.
Btw i hope you continue to make videos. You have a very constructive opinion that i havent found in any other youtubers videos on Kingdom Hearts. You deserve alot more views and subs!
Thanks, that means a lot! I try my best to be constructive without being super nitpicky and certainly without being petty. I really love this series, I'm not looking to give it a hard time. You'd be amazed how many people confuse "critiquing" with "hating" or nitpicking.
I'm working on other scripts slowly in the background, but I don't have any concrete plans to really start up a channel just yet - this video was basically a passion project because I had a lot to say about this game that I felt most people weren't delving into very deeply. I'm hoping to put out more game-related content, but I actually don't want to be a purely KH-centric channel if I expand, so hopefully the viewers I have will still be interested lol.
ThrillingDuck Nice! Seeing the Two videos you've made so far, You've got the quality content of a great UA-camr! I look forward to any future content you make!
This deserves more than 100 views. I agree with almost everything you said. Can’t wait to play kh4 when I have grandchildren!
Lol, thanks! I'm not a regular content producer so I'm hoping the views will slow-burn their way up over time.
ThrillingDuck well I’m super happy that I could be here before you get the millions of views. Can’t wait for your next video!
Good video! I hope you make more of them, going forward!
Before KH3, my personal theory was that maybe Yensid will rescue and bring extra lights to outsmart Xehanort and ruin his perfect plan of 7 vs 13. But in KH3, they began to play fast and loose with the lights and darknesses and Xemnas even comes out and say "who cares if you have one more light, we can have more darknesses too" and I am like... K. Well.. Not sure what the rules are anymore.
Loved the points in this video
I've internally debated whether I wanted roxas and xion to return. I decided "no" because there'd be a clusterfuck of characters. plus, their sacrifices would go to waste.
**post-KH3**
nomura has a clusterfuck of characters. and I've realized that even though their sacrifices were undermined, I still like roxas and xion a *shit-ton* more than sora.
10/10 on board with you on the gummi ship death star trench run potential
I pretty much agree with all your comments about the flaws in the Disney worlds and the plot holes in the main story. I think for me though, the plot holes are secondary to the fact that I just felt the endgame and the wrap-up for all these character arcs and plot threads just felt too rushed.
When I mention it, people always try to argue with me that KH2 pushed most of the story off until the end as well. But I think, ultimately, what makes KH2's story execution more tolerable is that there isn't as much going on. The story is just basically find Riku, and learn about Organization 13 and put a stop to them. It's pretty simple (even though it ultimately provides some setup for future stuff), and while there are a few things in KH2 that don't work for me narratively, it hits the mark in all the right areas and feels darn satisfying when Sora, Riku, and Kairi reunite at the end.
Meanwhile, by KH3, the series has introduced ALL these other characters --- and the game nerfs most of them and pretty much gives them nothing to do plotwise other than get rescued by Sora. Seeing the Sea Salt Trio and the Wayfinder Trio reunite is great, but in the end it kind of feels just like fanservice that was thrown in at the end because the creators felt obligated to do it. And because there are so many characters and plot threads that need to be addressed, everyone in the narrative except Sora gets shafted. Riku in particular was very obvious --- it's like they concluded his character arc with KH2 and DDD and had no idea what to do with him after that. Kairi had potential, but they squandered it by falling back on the same tropes they've been using since the beginning. Meanwhile, the reunions of the Sea Salt Trio and Wayfinder Trio all use the exact same formula. For example:
Aqua gets beaten up. Ventus wakes up and rushes in at the last second to save her.
Aqua and Ventus get beaten up. Terra comes to at the last second and saves them.
Xion and Axel get beaten up. Roxas appears at the last second to save them.
It's hard not to WANT to like these moments because we've been waiting for them for so long, but I can't help but feel like the use and reuse of these extremely similar scenarios robbed the reunions of some of their identity --- and to me, made me feel less like they were created with love and care and more as if they were just thrown in. Don't get me wrong. Watching Axel, Roxas, and Xion crying in each other's arms was quite moving, especially as someone whose first KH game was 358/2 Days. But as fun as the game is, I still can't say I walked away feeling fully satisfied. They made so many promises with all these spin-offs after KH2, and I don't think they truly gave any of these characters the attention they deserved.
How your entry point was 358 and you somehow went on to become a full-fledged series fan is beyond me, kudos to you sir.
@@ThrillingDuck My parents bought it for me when it first came out years ago because it had Disney characters in it lol.
Ironically, 358/2 Days is probably the game that has the LEAST emphasis on the Disney stuff out of all of them. I was quite confused but at least invested enough to read up on the lore XD
WAIT I REMEMBER YOU. Your the guy who made a rant about kingdom hearts 4 YEARS AGO!! Damm time flies fast.
Edit:
41:37 it's always been keychains.
In kh2 sora had two keyblades, so he could put a chain on the 1st one and a different chain on the other.
In kh2fm we see the rainfall keyblade and Aqua's armor in the basement of the lab at hollow bastion. In bbs Aqua gave up her keyblade and armor to save Terra. Being the fact we don't see her summon her keyblade in bbs secret episode, we can confer you can't summon keyblades if you in a different realm from it.
In 0.2 we clearly see master Eraqus's keyblade being laft on destiny island which returned to the realm of light.
Also Xemnas didn't break Lea's keyblade. He made Lea demilitarize his keyblade by force, because Lea is still inexperienced with using one.
I'm not trying to undermine your video, I think it's really good.
But you don't need to be a 12th level KH fan to understand these things, you just need to pay attention to the things on screen.
Let's take Lea keyblade as an example
Lea's keyblade demilitarize, Riku's does not. Lea resummons his right away, Riku has to go to Yen Sid to get his fix.
I'm not trying to me mean or anything, I really just like show don't tell
Found your video on DDD, from almost FIVE years ago, today and finished and thought, "man I wonder what he thought about KH3?" Only to find 15 hours ago you posted a KH3 video. What an awesome coincidence!
I agree, wholeheartedly, with everything you said. I was excited about the reunions, but I just felt SO disappointed and I couldn't explain why. You explained it perfectly. They felt so rushed. The game was long for a KH game, but everything just felt SO RUSHED. Maybe, and most likely, it's because they chose to shoehorn in all this information for the next game.
SPOILERS:
I was disappointed in every norted-nobody and villain getting some sort of redemption arc in the end, too. Like, I didn't mind it for a few of them, but ALL of them (well, aside from Vanitas)? I don't mind some villains having redeeming qualities, but why can't a villain just be a villain? I don't see how Master Xehanort had any way to redeem himself after BBS and Kairi. How Ansem and Riku had a moment where he would miss him... what?! Maybe that was a lost in translation thing, I don't know...
I could literally go on and on about everything once you get to the Keyblade Graveyard that I was disappointed in, but this post would be forever long. Overall, I enjoyed the game very much. Sora, Donald, and Goofy were so charming. But, the ending of this saga left me so unsatisfied and just did not have the effect that some of the earlier releases had on me.
Dude the first sentence legit described what I just went through
Yeah, it being rushed was definitely disappointing. Regardless though, I still felt like they did a good job concluding the Xehanort saga. And I had no problem with all of the villains getting redeemed.
Part of the reason it was rushed is because most of the reunions happened at the final battle, where it didn't make sense plot-wise for them to spend a lot of time just enjoying each other's company. But it didn't have to be that way.
Terra and Ventus came back a tiny bit before that, and they also some reunion time, but more would have been nice. They could brought them back even sooner. Roxas' entrance, appearing to save his friends was nice, but that also didn't have to be at the final battle, especially since they were trying to bring him back from the beginning. What would have been cool was if you get Aqua and Ventus back early in the game, and Roxas comes back before the end battle, too. You could have all your reunions before the final battle, and even use that as character motivation.
Then, the good characters spend the rest of the game recruiting allies and training and powering up for the final battle. You could even have a tournament where the good characters fight to determine who will be the seven that they send as guardians, if they even decided to follow Xehanort's plan and only use seven of them. Even better would be if you could choose to play as any of the characters in that tournament.
The good part about Roxas coming back at the very end is that he wasn't present for the humiliation that the seven guardians had of all being defeated by Terra/Xehanort and a heartless tower.
Dream Drop Distance is where Kingdom Hearts discontinuity began in my mega-crossover
It's the game that convinced me to stop playing the series.
21:21 It's not in the KH3 engine, it's actually CGI in this scene.
Heck you can tell inmediately about this because Goofy, Sora and Donald models are different
Good video. Agree with about half your points and disagree with the other half. Doubt any one KH fan has the exact same feelings towards KH3 but I really enjoyed it and look forward to the series further.
Will make sure to watch your vid on DDD despite it's 5 year age.
Thanks! And that's totally fair.
The other vid's a much lower quality production all around but I feel my points were just as strong so hopefully you can power through the jank and get something out of it.
I kind of hate the innocence of Sora, Donald, and Goofy. They get away with so much just being so carefree and constantly teasing ala some classic Donald, Goofy, and Mickey way that I feel the game is insulting me for even getting upset by it.
It actually leads me to most peoples' favorite worlds throughout kingdom hearts as they're the same in real life. It even led me to see a better villain motivation than KH ever had. And that is that most of the popular ones are meant to be metaphorical and isolated from society. They're meant to be moral lessons to take to heart (Mostly the good parts only) but when you see them as 3-dimensional people.....Or as WORLDS I can honestly see them as pretentiously insulting and emotionally immature. I could see the villains looking at them and seeing how people like Sora get their jollies from just being childishly in awe at the innocence. That most of those worlds couldn't hold up when trying to keep actual order when bringing in real world like problems.
I'm just happy someone finally said how Donald and Goofy have done way more to the Multiverse then everyone else other than Sora
I hated how everyone and their mama thought the Xigbar-Luxu reveal was the pinnacle of story telling. The whole time, I was like how? This doesn't make any sense. Like at this rate, Demyx will be the master of masters.
holyy shit an upload
good video
To add onto Kira1Lawiets comment, I have an add on that involves my what if scenario in a comment on your prior video about Dream Drop, where throughout that story which each sleeping keyhole unlocked Sora experiences a memory from Roxas and negative emotion from seeing an organization member like Xemnas, Xigbar, hell add Marluxia in the mix. All that builds up with him tapping into the power of darkness for the first time storytelling wise as he bashes Xemnas or Marluxia which almost results in him being norted.
That could also fit into the regaining of his strength, Sora gets a taste for the powers of darkness and deep down wants more and thats why Yen Sid puts him on that journey so Sora can learn to keep that darkness in check as the Guardians can't have a loose cannon ticking time bomb, this can also tie into Rage Form which can appear in a cutscene.
Now whether Roxas comes back or not is up to you, but I prefer if he and Sora's hearts merged as Light and Darkness come together in balance to form Twilight, maybe with that evolution of Sora's heart Kingdom Key upgrades into a new form representing the merger of hearts. Making Sora ready to take on the darkness again
This was a phenomenal review and I agree with almost every pro and con you mentioned. It’s so wonderful to have someone put into words what I’ve felt about this game.
I wanted to answer a few of your questions you presented in the video to the best of my ability :D All the other questions you asked not here are things I literally couldn’t answer because the story didn’t make sense.
38:48 I’m think Ventus in particular was implied to be unusual for having such a potent darkness in his heart. A lot of this makes sense when you take the X saga (which is convoluted as hell already) into consideration. However I do understand that this is not directly stated in the story which is an issue. But with the context of X and Ventus doing some VERY dark and questionable things, I do not think if you separated the darkness from any rando it would create something equivalent to Vanitas. I think it’s because of Ventus’ darkness he possesses.
42:51 I am pretty sure Sora is switching the keychains on his Keyblade. This was more emphasized and stated in KH1. However your criticism about how people can lose Keyblades is totally valid. My theory is that when a Keyblade wielded willingly gives up their weapon, it’s lost. Aqua gave hers away when she saved Terranort at the end of Birth By Sleep to send him off to Radiant Garden in the Realm of Light. She then sent Eraqus’s Keyblade off into the ocean with the intention of Sora finding it. So perhaps it’s based on the wielder’s intentions. Although the fact that they never explained is very valid criticism that the writers need to understand.
Hey, thanks so much! Glad the video resonated with you :) The stuff about Ven is very interesting. I need to look into the later Union X lore to see what they're retconning him into, but as i indicated in the video, I still consider blatant retconning to be bad writing haha. Still, I'll be sure and check that out.
As for the keychain thing, yeah people have brought that to my attention at this point, as well as how Aqua lost both of her keyblades. I still think it's kinda dumb, but it is admittedly accounted for, so that's my bad. Honestly changing (by adding insane details to) Ven's backstory bothers me a lot more personally lol. But again, thanks for watching!
I feel like you're the type of fellow who could watch a lore video and be fine. You may not still like certain ideas but i do highly recommend it
Buddy I have yet to find a lore video that adequately explains any of this shit - they just summarize what happens with no explanation to the contradictions.
I've learned way more about fan theories and potential canon fixes from viewer discussions on this video. If you've learned something from a lore video that actually solves anything I discussed that hasn't already been discussed here then by all means be my guest. But I've done my research. There are LOTS of holes in this franchise's writing.
@@ThrillingDuck You wanna ask something you don't know? I do want to help out and who knows you might even be able to tell me some things i may not know as yet.
When all the mess happened in the keyblade graveyard. I remembered there’s context. It’s when xemnas said panic leads to lack of preparation cuz larxene think she made mistake when she told sora they were set
And yes, that's been a complaint for a while, it's just more obvious now due to our ability to communicate growing over the years.
Excellent analysis!
For the Disney worlds, there isn’t much to add to what you said other than Square was clearly not allowed the narrative flexibility they had in KH2. They should have stayed with primarily Classic Disney. Pirates and Toy Box (maybe Tangled) would have sufficed for modern worlds. The atmosphere of Classic Disney works better for KH. Jack and the Beanstalk or Fantasia 2000 would have been more magical than Monsters or San Fransokyo.
As for the main plot:
There is a noticeable difference in the way scenarios are presented now. In KH and KH2 there are many, many cutscenes devoted to exposition, esp in the World that Never Was. Nomura used to take his time with the story. Perhaps because of hardware limitations and criticisms of cutscene lengths, he has tried to go minimalist. That style does not support KH’s story. In his Ultimania interview he admitted that he is aware characters were not given proper interactions in the Keyblade Graveyard, so he might adjust this in the DLC. Til then, the criticism stands.
This game’s story is also hurt by the absence of a mid-game. It’s a 2-act story. Either a Realm of Darkness sequence before the Aqua rescue OR, more interestingly, an entire World of Ruin 3rd act after Xehanort opens KH. This would have allowed the Guardians to team up and interact as they traveled to the now-consumed worlds to save everyone. A perfect opportunity to let us visit original worlds and encounter the FF characters, resolving those relationships as well as developing the Guardians as a team.
I am with you on dreading the Foretellers as major characters lol. At least in KH2 Org13 had unique personalities. The Master is sure to be quirky, though.
Once again, great job! There are some points I don’t agree with, but KH’s story invites debate and I’ve always found that to be part of the fun. Keep it up!
Edit: the music. Shockingly, the weakest OST of the three main titles. Unbalanced and I suspect unfinished (many rehashed 1.5/2.5 tracks). Contains some of the series best work (“Final World,” “Corona Field,” “Toy Box battle,” “Other Promise/Vector,” “Oscurita di Xehanort,” and “Scala ad Caelum”) but also some of the worst (the final boss music). The non-Shimomura final boss theme is just one of many bizarre decisions in this game.
Hey thanks! Glad you enjoyed the video :)
It's interesting - I've been hearing a lot of people share your sentiment about the selection of Disney worlds in this entry, but the reality is all the best, most fitting worlds have already been used, so unless we retread old ground I don't really think Nomura had much choice here. Honestly I'm surprised he didn't include Princess and the Frog - I thought Dr. Facilier was born to be a KH boss character lol - but other than that I thought most of the world choices made sense given the context of this game's release. Just my opinion though.
Definitely agree with you about the 3-act thing. The music selection didn't bother me personally - honestly I'm just sort of used to it at this point lol. We haven't had a complete soundtrack of fresh tracks since KH2, but since a lot of the returning tracks are character themes it's kind of to be expected. Like nobody complains about Meta Knight and King Dedede reusing themes in each Kirby game - to me it's kind of like that. But yeah, I won't argue that more new tracks would've been cool. And I don't know whose idea it was to put Lingering Will's theme so prominently in the final battle with Xehanort - that was TERRIBLE theming.
well spoken friend
Man this video is underrated
Thank you for a fair and organized critique. I really appreciate your loving and fair opinion, truly. I had similar sense of disappointment with many of the choices they made in development and story connection. I think my biggest disappointment though is the deconstruction of Sora. I mean in kh 1 you start off as the only hope. The one. The key blade wielder. You’ve spent countless hours sacrificing your childhood and safety to rescue your friends and ultimately the world from certain darkness and yet..you’re unworthy? Silly? Unprepared? NOT a key blade master or anywhere close? I started this long journey feeling SO connected to Sora and being the hero. And to have all his (and, ultimately, my) progress belittled and side-showed to do meaningless busy work I was so crestfallen. Every world I kept thinking ‘okay this is going to be the one where I make a difference. This is the one where Sora’s input will matter’. Instead I was bored and uninterested in his story and desperately waited for the small snippets of riku and Mickey doing the real and fate-altering work. Especially because there were little to no return worlds that I had come to love. Sora points out several times that he and the audience have no earthly idea why they are where they are, which I found tasteless. I didn’t feel the same sense of urgency as other titles and I didn’t find any of the ‘villans’ intimidating or relevant to the overall plot. Especially when the organization kept popping up just to basically make fun of Sora and leave lol. I’m also one of the people who did not appreciate the addition of Disney rides as I initially fell in love with this series for the serious and purposeful atmosphere the first game established but instead it feels like this title is more a Disney game for kids than a square Enix addition. This furthers my disappointment with Sora being so ‘stupid’ and ‘goofy’ in this game. The previous titles had certain moments of child-like stubbornness and naivety which match up with his age, but it feels like a regression here in my opinion. Even Kairi experiences more significant character growth than I feel they have given Sora, and that’s saying something. I would have honestly preferred and identified more with this game being told entirely from Riku’s point of view, and that’s crazy because he has always been the loveably frustrating anti-hero who so closely toes the line of good and evil. But at least there would have been a personal struggle and general plan to follow and work hard towards. Also them gutting Olympus and changing such an iconic theme of the major titles was jarring..don’t know what they were doing there. Closing points unmentioned- no ff characters, huge worlds with minimal content resulting in aesthetic value only, needless Instagram-style pandering loading screens, condensed twilight town, and the strange addition of a cooking mini game with ratatouille. Overall I’m sad to say I also didn’t love dream drop distance or chain of memories (the latter for combat reasons, not story) but I have and will continue to replay them for their charms. It has been over a year since kh 3 release and I have no desire to and don’t think I ever will play it again. The rest of the saga I will play into the ground despite the individual drawbacks, but this was a true heartbreak for me. I will choose to ignore it as much as possible and look forward to future installments that hopeful will preserve my sincere belief that Sora is a strong, considerate, brave, and flawed character who will without thought travel space and time for his friends. Thanks again for your hard work!! This was bittersweet but very well done. Subscribed for future content! 💕
A 1 hour video from you talking about KH3? Lets get it!
You summed up the appeal of the Disney worlds perfectly for me.
Nice discussion video! You should do more.
The best way they could explain Sora getting stuff done despite being so "weak" would be to say that an unseen presence is lending its power to him during those tricky boss battles. Sorta like Undertale, I think.
Also surprised you didn't mention the Zettaflare moment. That was pretty awesome even if Kairi looked bad as a result of the scene.
All those fight scenes were cool and fun to watch out of context, but Zettaflare's use there was stupid because again - it was just Terranort. Like guys, it was JUST TERRANORT. THERE ARE SEVEN OF YOU NOT COUNTING DONALD AND GOOFY. Why was Donald sacrificing himself even necessary to begin with, you know?
@@ThrillingDuck
I think it's Final Fantasy canon that if you use Zettaflare you die. But yeah, DONALD DUCK kinda did more than the keyblade wielders. And 3 of them are supposed to be Keyblade Masters.
But doesn't Donald's moment mean that there is ANOTHER instance where a Disney character OWNS one of the villains?
@@DrawciaGleam02 Haha well, I wouldn't call it complete ownership since he has to sacrifice himself. He defeats him sure, but what Jack does to Luxord and what Sulley does to Vanitas are basically effortless - they don't have a scratch on themselves when they're done.
I actually really liked this analysis in spite of how much of its time was devoted to being critical of inconsistencies. I particularly like it for your conclusion though, because I think most KH fans are aware of the insane amount of inconsistencies, retcons, plot holes and nonsense. And yet there is *something* that seems to trump all of that: those magical moments of whimsy. It's also a serious which is unafraid to be edgy, goofy, silly, cliche, and so on.
I think "turning off your brain" is a decent way to put it, but here it's just not as negative as that may imply, which you seem to say as well. Would the series be better without those inconsistencies? Probably, yes. But has it lost what made it great? Not really. Maybe it now requires turning your brain off where it didn't before, but the "magic" of KH is certainly still there, and for that reason KH3 really gave me hope for the future of the series.
I agree with about half of that, but at the end of the day yeah - the "heart" is what matters most, and KH3 had more heart than I had seen in a looooooong time :)
So about the whole Aqua keyblade fiasco. I'm pretty sure that in the end of BBS's secret episode, aqua gives up her keyblade armor in order to transport Terra's body back to the realm of light. Since the keyblade has been show to have a bunch of transformation properties, I kind of assume that the keyblade armor was like, part of the keyblade, thus meaning that when she gave her armor up, she also gave up her own physical keyblade. As for how she LET her own keyblade drift out to sea... yeah I got nothin.
Ah, very interesting point. I could probably buy the whole "keyblade bound to the armor" thing as the reason for losing her own, but as you indicated here Nomura's left multiple layers of plotholes, so even if we close up one the ship is still sinking lol.
If I'm not mistaken (I've been binge-playing all the other games of the series before playing this one: HUGE MISTAKE!), Aqua loses Eraqus's Keyblade while fighting on Destiny Island in KH 0.2 Birth By Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage, so we COULD SAY she couldn't summon it from other world because it wasn't hers or because you can't do that from the Darkness' realm.
About her losing her own keyblade instead, there's a point in what you said: she could have lost it with her armor... but what about all the other ones?
This is something that Thrilling Duck also brought in this video and always bothered me, too: are the key-chains only new "skins" of the Keyblade or are they totally new Keyblade? There are different reasons that make it look like the second theory is the right one, which really annoys me because it totally invalidated the significance of Sora receiving it in KH 1.
But that ship already sailed in other games, specifically when:
-Riku and Kairi got a Keyblade, too in KH II
-it was showed that like, a million other people weilded it in the past
-finally, when in 3D ret-conned it saying that Riku was actually supposed to receive it when Destiny Islands fell it but it went to Sora instead because he was subjugated by the Darkness.
I mean, the whole prologue of KH 1 would make you think otherwise, but nvm.
Keyblades are basically the Sharingan of KH universe.
Not really, the sharigan was only ever treated with high significance because evryone who had them were dead, and even than those who didn't have blood ties to the clan sufferd greatly from using it. Also the keyblade being meant for riku was a thing since kh1.
@@fightingmedialounge519 I don't remember enough about Naruto to discuss about it, all I remember is that at the beginning it was supposed to be rare, for the reason you said, and then a lot of people turned out having it.
About the part in KH1, it only happens when Riku "steals" the Keyblade from Sora saying that you can possess it if you have a stronger heart than the one who wields it (which Sora in the ends does). But in KH 3D they actually say that SORA'S KEYBLADE was meant JUST for him SINCE THE BEGINNING, because he made the ritual with Terra in BbS. And this is a ret-con that annoys me twice, because it didn't serve anything to the plot and it's never mentioned again other then sharing a useless and hard-to-believe anedocte, advertised as a shocking plot twist.
55:46 Actually Xigbar being Luxu makes sense imo.
Reminder that Xigbar changed his eyes to yellow off screen on BBS
He was in the secret ending of Re:Coded talking to young xenahort, and some dialogues about him really hinted that something was going on with him
I think ever since BBS everything was leading for him at least having an bigger role at some point, since he was always pretty much the one person who was helping Xenahort with his shit in some way or another.
Feel like you shout check out the GT on the Frozen level, essentially after the Arendelle World is over, you can go and see the Ice palace at the top and go to the door but not go in, the map tho shows there is something there which LOOKS like the Ice dungeon entrance. The theory is that Nomura wanted to make Elsa be the enemy via getting manipulated by Larxene or her losing herself to the darkness, something to that effect, creates the ice castle where you have to climb and then fight Elsa as the Ice Wolf to restore her and then she can fix the weather. This would make Larxene's comments to Sora about Elsa choosing light or darkness make sense as she then becomes the unwilling enemy and now the Organization has a powerful ice master on their side. Disney however most likely didn't like this and had them just redo the entire world to rehash the Frozen 1 plot and boon we have a cookie cutter plot where Sora really doesn't do much of anything plot wise and we get the Villain from Frozen 1 just showing up randomly at the end to for some reason become a heartless and needing to get toasted. I would definitely give it a watch if you haven't seen it yet.
I don't know if anyone has said this but... Lingering Will is explained. One of the hearts that you can talk to in The Final World is Namine, and she says that her heart was split from Kairi's when they were all attacked, she also says that she spoke to Terra while going through memories and that she'll guide his strong will that kept him tethered to the Realm of Light, Lingering Will, to help them.
I'm not sure if anybody has commented this (I'm sure they have), but in case nobody has, there were two missable cutscenes in the Final World where you talk to two of the stars, one of which being Namine who tells you that she's contacted Lingering Will and that he will join the battle
Literally finished watching your DDD video and went, "I wonder if he also talked about KH3." Now I just finished this one. Haha I have had so many gripes with the game, but it honestly may be the influence of MANY reviews of KH3 I've been watching for the past week. I do have three major issues when I experienced the game myself.
One: Poor Kairi. She was hyped up to be a full fledged Keyblade Wielder in DDD, but she continues to be the damsel in distress. I felt like there was a decision to push Sora and Kairi's relationship hard, but they simply couldn't figure it out. I only believe this due to how Xehanort just kills Kairi right in front of him. They didn't manage to establish any sort of build up before she was killed. Sure, Sora kind of starts realizing he loves her during "The Final World" act, but that's about it. Xehanort didn't even NEED to kill her. He just needed to fight on of the lights to form another No Name, right? If they wanted him to look more like an asshole, then I guess they at least accomplished that. I should of felt sad, but I was more confused. It kind of made me wish Kairi was a party member who traveled with us. They'd finally have that adventure they wanted since they were kids and would have been the perfect build up. Would have even made The Final World make more sense.
Two: The Keyblade Graveyard. YES. WHY DID EVERYONE IMMEDIATELY GET THEIR ASSES HANDED TO THEM?! I get that Nomura wanted to make the player feel like all hope was lost, but they should have at least gone down fighting or SOMETHING! Have them fight even though the odds are clearly against them for that false sense of hope, THEN have them get defeated one by one keeping the scene with Sora breaking down in front of Riku. Aqua straight up losing hope and just embracing her death was so terrible. These are our HEROES. Not to mention they literally defeated a bunch of Heartless, Nobodies, and Unversed right before the hurricane of darkness.
Three: The sequel baiting. Pretty much exactly what you said. Just have a proper conclusion like KH2. I also want to point out that Nomura specifically left out the Epilogue and Secret movie because, in his opinion, those were the most "spoilery" cut-scenes of the end game. I actually want a confirmation if the Destiny Islands ending scene was a part of said Day 1 DLC because that says something.
Sorry for the wall of text, but I've been ranting about the game a lot. I could probably make a video on it myself if I wanted to. Oh. As for Xion, the explanation given was that they recreated her with no heart and memories. Just her initial form when Roxas first meets her in the Gathering room. (But wouldn't that make her absorb everyone's powers again?) Shit, I don't know. I'm just happy for her dammit.
I appreciate the wall of text haha - I made these videos to facilitate discussions :)
I'm curious where this Xion explanation stems from, but honestly it still doesn't matter. If this is a time-plucked early variant of her "with no heart and memories" then that just creates an entirely different set of plot-holes. How does SHE remember them then? Why does she care about them or have any emotional investment? No matter how you slice it, her presence in the finale makes no sense.
@@ThrillingDuck I honestly don't even remember where I got that tidbit of info.
All I know is that they don't time pluck her at all. She's just remade as to how she was originally. A puppet with no heart and memories. Sora pulls off some Chain of Memories shenanigans once he gets in proximity of her.
I still agree that even with this explanation, it still makes no sense for her to pop up so suddenly. If they remembered to recreate her, did they not remember that she would rebel? Why didn't they just use a new puppet that WASN'T Xion? Can she still absorb memories and power? It really does just create more plot holes.
It was just awkward to see one of my favorite characters show up out of nowhere and get revived so easily.
Not only does Xigbar being Luxu suck because they’re just reusing a character but it literally makes no sense.
As we’ve come to understand, when a heartless and a nobody are defeated by the keyblade, in that specific order, the original person can come back. So heartless ansem and xemnas were killed and brought back xehanort. This is a little weird because his heartless and nobody were created when he possessed terra but ok, maybe that’s just how it works.
Xigbar is killed near the end of KH2 and is recompleted as braig, but by this time luxu had already taken over his body. So why wasn’t Luxu brought back? In the one and only example in the series where a possessed body comes back, it is the one who was doing the possessing that is brought back in full form. So in the one example in the series that they’ve given, in the literal next game, they break the rule so it can be revealed that Xigbar is Luxu. Which also means that we have, without actually knowing it, beaten the main villain of the next saga twice. And if Luxu isn’t the main villain it can only be the master of masters, a character who literally nobody knows anything about and has no emotional attachment or connection to whatsoever. I loved playing KH3 but I can’t say I’m excited for the rest of the series to follow, at least story wise.
Omg that's brilliant - by the rules of Recompletion Luxu's true form should have been restored when Xigbar was first killed. If I make a follow-up video when the DLC comes out I wanna bring this up, but I'll credit you for the idea.
ThrillingDuck Thanks man. I’ve seen a ton of KH3 videos and I haven’t seen anyone address it. Btw if you do make that video and credit me, can you credit my UA-cam channel? The channels name is Tomziac. I’m small like you and I make analytical content about anime/videogames. Been wanting to do a KH video but sadly haven’t had the time to.
@@thomasdavis1340 You got it - I'll credit Tomziac should the time come.
The only explanation is Luxu possessed MANY forms over the generations. Which would have to mean his original form would have to be lost amongst the infinite heartless while the body of luxu is just.......somewhere? Personally I have no problem with Xigbar being Luxu or the next main guy cause in my perception, big shot, over the top villains leave such openings for others to fill. They do so much, put themselves so out there and aspire for too much that they can leave others to simply watch and be prepared to take over with their own ideals and plans no matter how dumb or petty or more intelligent they are.
I just figured Xigbar would be like Revolver Ocelot, as a vessel for MoM or Luxu cause of that EYE regardless of future planning or not.
I just have doubts on him actually doing his plans or whatever cause he's more effective just being a watcher, just being able to enjoy the show and take over behind some over the top person like Xehanort, and that's even assuming Nomura is still alive to write such things. I could even write for Luxu or Xigbar if I wanted to cause of the unwritten open- endedness
@@TheKpa11 Luxu possessed many people but presumably only Braig got turned into a Nobody. If Xehanort can get recompleted with absolutely no trace of Terra despite Terra's body being the mold for Ansem and Xemnas then there's no excuse for Luxu not to regain his true form the first time he's recompleted.
I'd like to point out that the only reason why Sora is "canonically the 'weak one'" is because the writers keep resetting him back to level 1 in every single game.