Riku=Nanomachines.
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Is Kingdom Hearts really all that confusing?
- Thread starter Sats
- Start date
Riku=Nanomachines.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Well, if you are discussing stuff with people who disagree with you with the sentiment that the people across the fence are stupid, unintelligent people (that "can't possibly handle stuff with any particular weight") then I don't even know what to say.
KH series can do a lot of good though, simplifying its multi-branching-everywhere storyline. Wrap it up neatly.
Vire
Member
For what it is worth, KH3 pretty much has to do this if it wants it to be a conclusion.
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
well they made it so that i dont remember agonizing through it, so i dont really remember what i did in that game for them
i wasn't necessarily saying it like that, although the inference might be there for some people. just more that if something like this is confusing that it might not be very enjoyable to watch other things that are multifaceted or mindfucky. its like how everyone says "Inception is such a mindfuck!" but i'm sitting there thinking that i just "get it" and nothing is really particularly mindfucking me about it.
HylianScribe
Member
Some dude named Master Xehanort wants to unlock the power of Kingdom Hearts, the supposed power source of all worlds in the universe, and to do so he believes he needs an item called the X-Blade. The X-Blade was the ultimate weapon and a special type of sword known as a Keyblade -- something only few people can wield. Many Keyblade wielders fought over the X-Blade long ago, and the conflict nearly destroyed everything -- the world, once whole, split into various smaller worlds scattered about. In the aftermath, the remaining Keyblade Wielders vowed to protect the worlds from falling into darkness.
Over the course of each game, Master Xenhanort, or one of his spawn/alter egos (Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, Xemnas, Apprentice Xehanort, Young Xehanort), has sought to obtain Kingdom Hearts through forging the X-Blade or some other means (like trying to use a group of people known as Organization XIII). Warriors of light known as Keyblade Wielders (Sora, Riku, Aqua, Terra, Ventus, Kairi, Mickey, etc) have stopped the villain at every turn so far.
However, despite thwarting Master Xehanort's plot, through the magic of time travel nothing that happened in any game prior to Dream Drop Distance (the latest game) matters too much. Time travel allows Xehanort to gather various incarnations of himself scattered across the timeline to form a new Organization XIII to confront the Keyblade Wielders in Kingdom Hearts III. The resulting battle, according to Master Xehanort, will produce the perfect conditions to forge the X-Blade, allowing him to finally gain access to Kingdom Hearts.
That's about as simple of an explanation as you can get. It gets convoluted when you try to start explaning who everyone is (Sora/Roxas/Ventus/Xion, Kairi/Namine, DiZ/Ansem the Wise/Ansem SoD, Master Xehanort/Young Xehanort/Apprentice Xehanort/Terra-Xehanort, Organization XIII member allegiances and motives, etc). Or how the hell time travel works. Or how Keyblades work and why certain people wield keyblades.
Over the course of each game, Master Xenhanort, or one of his spawn/alter egos (Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, Xemnas, Apprentice Xehanort, Young Xehanort), has sought to obtain Kingdom Hearts through forging the X-Blade or some other means (like trying to use a group of people known as Organization XIII). Warriors of light known as Keyblade Wielders (Sora, Riku, Aqua, Terra, Ventus, Kairi, Mickey, etc) have stopped the villain at every turn so far.
However, despite thwarting Master Xehanort's plot, through the magic of time travel nothing that happened in any game prior to Dream Drop Distance (the latest game) matters too much. Time travel allows Xehanort to gather various incarnations of himself scattered across the timeline to form a new Organization XIII to confront the Keyblade Wielders in Kingdom Hearts III. The resulting battle, according to Master Xehanort, will produce the perfect conditions to forge the X-Blade, allowing him to finally gain access to Kingdom Hearts.
That's about as simple of an explanation as you can get. It gets convoluted when you try to start explaning who everyone is (Sora/Roxas/Ventus/Xion, Kairi/Namine, DiZ/Ansem the Wise/Ansem SoD, Master Xehanort/Young Xehanort/Apprentice Xehanort/Terra-Xehanort, Organization XIII member allegiances and motives, etc). Or how the hell time travel works. Or how Keyblades work and why certain people wield keyblades.
Vire
Member
It's an anagram of No Heart, with an X in it.
Grizzlyjin
Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
Well...I think that Kingdom Hearts is just a collection of bad anime tropes and "make it up as we go" storytelling. I mean doesn't "Ansem" refer to like 4 or 5 different characters? Come on, it's not some complex misunderstood masterpiece. It's just a convoluted jumble of ideas. They wrote something, left some loose ends, they use the inbetween games to try and explain the loose ends but also add original story to keep the fans happy, but then those original things need explaining.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Oh, they already said that this is the last one in the series?
Hmm.
Anyways, ignoring the "3" part for the moment, what number is this game actually if we take account all the numerous non-numbered Kingdom Heart games available across various platforms?
Seven Force
Banned
Ignoring remakes and ports? KHIII would be the eighth entry.
No, they said it's the last one of the Xehanort Saga, the series will still live.
9 if you count X[chi], the PC one coming soon.
HylianScribe
Member
I love KH fans, but just like Nintendo has made up the Zelda Timeline as they went along, Nomura has made up the KH storyline as he went along. Don't care what the guy says in interviews, it's crystal clear some stuff was thought up after-the-fact and other stuff was ret-conned.
The KH 3 press release called it the "Seeker of Darkness Saga", right? X[chi] is not canon apparently, so it doesn't count.
When asked, Nomura said KHIII would be the last in the "Xehanort Saga" but he would like Sora's adventures to continue.
I would say that Nomura knew what he was doing up until the very end of KH2. If you look at how Kingdom Hearts 1 begins and how Kingdom Hearts 2 ends, you can see he had a clear vision with those games.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
So it's basically Kingdom Hearts 9? Huh.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XMakesAnythingCool
For me personally, the 1st sign of 'trouble' appeared when they introduce "Organization XIII". I distinctively remember I said, "Oh boy, here we go," back then, hahaha.
Astral/H3X
Member
I don't get why the handhelds couldn't have been tangentially related instead of actually a part of the storyline.
I seriously won't play the games for 2 reasons: 1), I fucking hate Donald and Goofy. No, couldn't have given me two characters whose voices don't want me to join Leon with the Raskaplange in RE6 in the meat grinder. NO, that would have been too nice.
And 2, I know the story won't make any sense whatsoever.
I seriously won't play the games for 2 reasons: 1), I fucking hate Donald and Goofy. No, couldn't have given me two characters whose voices don't want me to join Leon with the Raskaplange in RE6 in the meat grinder. NO, that would have been too nice.
And 2, I know the story won't make any sense whatsoever.
Grizzlyjin
Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
Exactly. I'm not saying anyone is dumb or bad for being invested in the story. If you like it, you like it. But let's be real...there is no way someone is plotting this stuff from square one. I think they take it a game at a time, and when the time comes, they fill in the gaps. This is something that happens it comics frequently, and you're seeing it here.
mapachealocado
Member
This.
Also, most of people's issues with the story (aside from not playing the games) are their expectations. People go expecting simple Disney storylines and they're nowhere to be found. Or they go expecting a Final Fantasy story and, again, they can't find it. It might have started like just a Disney/FF crossover but it's come a long way from that. The fact that it has Disney characters doesn't mean it has to spell everything out for you.
Take the story for what it is. Organization XIII, Nobodies,
time travel
And please, play the games. I could say that a lot of the "story hate" KH gets is coming from people who got mad that they released games in a lot of platforms and didn't play them. That sucked, yes, but you can't judge the story if you haven't played (not read) all of them.
All of this is, of course, my opinion. I've never had issues with the story but I guess I can understand where people are coming from with their comments. I agree that KH3 NEEDS to wrap things up because there are a lot of loose ends and confusing plot lines. They've been answering them little by little with each game but KH3 needs to end that.
Isn't this common knowledge? I've always known Nomura makes stuff up as he goes. The teaser at the end of KH1 was just a proof of concept and he developed the story for that after the game.
Absinthian
Neo Member
It takes a half an hour to explain the basic plot...
It doesn't and we're talking about a series that spans multiple games, with multiple perspectives from multiple characters.
by all means, explain the story to me then
Sub_Level
wants to fuck an Asian grill.
It was only MGS4 that explained everything with nanomachines. The story wasn't needlessly convoluted either, it benefited from having many factors and angles. The interweaving of all these plot points to this day remains one of MGS' strong points, despite the more ridiculous turns the stories have taken. Sons of Liberty, the most obtuse of the franchise, wasn't straightforward, but if you paid attention it wasn't hard to follow.
Kingdom Hearts was just random shit, although admittedly I haven't played them since I was an adolescent so maybe if I replayed them they'd be easier to follow.
decoyplatypus
Member
The objection isn't that KH is mindfucking anyone. The objection is either that it (a) has twisted itself so many ways that important things like character, motivations, and stakes have become vague (and ineffective), or (b) that it is internally incoherent. Responding to these sorts of objections with, "Oh, did you not get it?" is presumptuous. The unspoken premise of the objection is that the player "got" all there was to get in the game. Now, you're welcome to ask anyone objecting to explain why they feel that way about the story, but suggesting they just don't like "multifaceted plots" misses the point of the objection entirely.
EDIT: Okay, in fairness, when someone says "I do not understand what X means," it's not clear whether she is accusing it of internal incoherence or registering approval/disapproval of a mystery.
Grizzlyjin
Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
Convoluted as hell, but they sure know how to do a secret end of game tease. Deep Dive had me insanely hyped back in the day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAmcJ1FOv5o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4q3QiUZ8sA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAmcJ1FOv5o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4q3QiUZ8sA
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
there's a difference between plot devices not delivering and simply being confused.
confused means you don't understand, but the plot elements are there -- you just didn't retain them.
plot devices not delivering means you understand but the writing was so bad that you can't make sense of it. of course Kingdom Hearts has nonsensical lore and
Sora is actually just fighting himself
The difference here is that Sats just doesn't seem to understand the storyline at all. He also mentions Halo was hard to follow. I played the first two games, I don't really see where that comes from either. Maybe he just doesn't have as much exposure to sci-fi stories and "intricate" plot telling like KH attempts to do.
When I played through KH and KH2, all it was was me putting the pieces together in my head as the story went along. Not everyone can do the same thing, I'm sure, and some things just don't stick as you're progressing along. I probably retained 95%, but Sats probably was in the low 30s, and that's why he is just confused at the end of the game
That's why Kingdom Hearts is a game and hasn't yet been a movie for little kids. You can only deliver something like this in a game form or as a book. The endless details are super boring otherwise. At the end of the day they are trying to motivate YOU to play the game.
I'm not saying the story is top-notch by any means, but i'd hardly say that at the end of the game I didn't have the feeling of "i didn't get it"
PshycoNinja
Member
Everything was explained well up until this. Everything leading up to that moment was important for everyone involved. Master Eraqus died. The three friends (Terra, Ven and Aqua) were separated with Sora being the only one that can save them (because he safeguards Vens heart; hence why Sora's Nobody (Roxas) looks like Ven). Sora becoming a Keyblade wielder.
Riku becoming a Keyblade Master. Gathering the Seven Warriors of Light to fight the Thirteen Seekers of Darkeness. The X-Blade
That's why Xehanort is such a cool villain. He's not particularly powerful, he's just smart and cunning. Which makes him even more dangerous. Too many villains in RPG's are just these world ending entities while Xehanort has plans to do what he wants but goes about it very carefully.
The story in a single KH game really isn't that convoluted. KH1 is about darkness invading a trio of friends' home world and one of them going on a journey to look for the others as they get lost in the darkness, while Disney villains & an original villain try to harness that darkness for their own schemes. ReCoM is a bit more complicated but I think it's in a good way (Namine manipulating Sora's memories & the villains trying to trick Sora into working for them, Riku fighting his way out of the darkness). In II Sora continues his journey to find his best friend who got lost in the realm of darkness during the first game, while a new group of villains (+ different form of the main villain of the series) try a new scheme to get to harness the infinite power of the Kingdom Hearts.
BBS explains the quite simple origin story of the main villain, who was a great Keyblade wielder who succumbed to a dark path and is now trying to seek power in the form of Kingdom Hearts. 358/2 Days explains Roxas' time at the Organization and what led to him trying to leave it. Dream Drop Distance handles Sora & Riku's Mark of Mastery, but that "exam" is invated & twisted for the villains purposes right from the start, ending with the reveal of the real purpose behind Organization XIII and setting up KHIII with the whole 7 of light vs. 13 of darkness thing.
It's just that when you start to tie these games together, you have to have a decent grasp of how different characters connect to each other and what they are doing at any given time. That's when it gets a bit complicated, but only if you try to explain everything at once. Even then, if you take only one character, say, Master Xehanort, it's pretty easy to explain how his story advances (Keyblade master originally, falls on a dark path, gets old, seeks someone who he can possess in BBS to live longer, finds that person and succeeds in his plans partly but loses his memories in a battle against Aqua, ends up at a scientists doorsteps, becomes a scientist himself, gets memories back and remembers what he was trying to achieve, gets corrupted by darkness during his studies of it, creating a Heartless and a Nobody in the process, both the Heartless and the Nobody have their own plans on how they are trying to get to Kingdom Hearts, both fail). Only 3D kind of muddies it up with the time travel stuff.
I think people just have difficulties accepting some of the basic rules of the KH Universe, the more outlandish fantasy ideas that are a part of the Universe and especially the stuff when Nomura starts to play around with some of those concepts. So for some people the concept of a Nobody is stupid although it's really not that bad of an concept, or complicated or convoluted at all. Nomura just makes all kinds of twists following those rules (i.e. it's pretty simple an idea that a Heartless & a Nobody are formed when someone succumbs to darkness, but what if someone has two or even more Hearts inside his own when that happens? that of course first requires you to accept that someone's heart can even "store" other people's hearts).
I personally don't think the concepts and bigger outlines of the story are that bad, what IS bad is the actual writing, pacing and how certain stuff is presented. If they had someone who is actually a good writer write the story, they could handle the now-cringeworthy dialogue better, pace the advancement of the story better & flesh out certain characters better, and remove the redundancy that sometimes plagues some aspects of the story (we get it already, friendship is important, no need to yap on and on about it ever five minutes). All-in-all I still find the overall story somewhat enjoyable in its own crazy way.
BBS explains the quite simple origin story of the main villain, who was a great Keyblade wielder who succumbed to a dark path and is now trying to seek power in the form of Kingdom Hearts. 358/2 Days explains Roxas' time at the Organization and what led to him trying to leave it. Dream Drop Distance handles Sora & Riku's Mark of Mastery, but that "exam" is invated & twisted for the villains purposes right from the start, ending with the reveal of the real purpose behind Organization XIII and setting up KHIII with the whole 7 of light vs. 13 of darkness thing.
It's just that when you start to tie these games together, you have to have a decent grasp of how different characters connect to each other and what they are doing at any given time. That's when it gets a bit complicated, but only if you try to explain everything at once. Even then, if you take only one character, say, Master Xehanort, it's pretty easy to explain how his story advances (Keyblade master originally, falls on a dark path, gets old, seeks someone who he can possess in BBS to live longer, finds that person and succeeds in his plans partly but loses his memories in a battle against Aqua, ends up at a scientists doorsteps, becomes a scientist himself, gets memories back and remembers what he was trying to achieve, gets corrupted by darkness during his studies of it, creating a Heartless and a Nobody in the process, both the Heartless and the Nobody have their own plans on how they are trying to get to Kingdom Hearts, both fail). Only 3D kind of muddies it up with the time travel stuff.
I think people just have difficulties accepting some of the basic rules of the KH Universe, the more outlandish fantasy ideas that are a part of the Universe and especially the stuff when Nomura starts to play around with some of those concepts. So for some people the concept of a Nobody is stupid although it's really not that bad of an concept, or complicated or convoluted at all. Nomura just makes all kinds of twists following those rules (i.e. it's pretty simple an idea that a Heartless & a Nobody are formed when someone succumbs to darkness, but what if someone has two or even more Hearts inside his own when that happens? that of course first requires you to accept that someone's heart can even "store" other people's hearts).
I personally don't think the concepts and bigger outlines of the story are that bad, what IS bad is the actual writing, pacing and how certain stuff is presented. If they had someone who is actually a good writer write the story, they could handle the now-cringeworthy dialogue better, pace the advancement of the story better & flesh out certain characters better, and remove the redundancy that sometimes plagues some aspects of the story (we get it already, friendship is important, no need to yap on and on about it ever five minutes). All-in-all I still find the overall story somewhat enjoyable in its own crazy way.
The main character is one person, with a completely separate person being created from him.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
....Reading that summary, Kingdom Hearts really has a fascination with the letter X, huh.
The storyline does have that 'make it up as you go along' kind of feeling to it. People do seem to be emotionally invested in it though, so I guess it is successful in that sense.
The problem is that there have been way too many spinoffs made since 2. Since pretty much only the mainline entries actually advance the plot in any meaningful way, the spinoffs really do nothing but fill in lore and create more questions in the process. This means that 3 has a lot of explaining to do when it actually releases.
The problem is that there have been way too many spinoffs made since 2. Since pretty much only the mainline entries actually advance the plot in any meaningful way, the spinoffs really do nothing but fill in lore and create more questions in the process. This means that 3 has a lot of explaining to do when it actually releases.
None of the games you're referring to are "spin offs." A spin off game is something like Mario Party or Wario Ware, which use characters and assets from a main game to create something entirely different. Those games follow the same functions as the numbered Kingdom Hearts, and also fill in gaps or progress the story in some way. Although, you have cases like with re:coded where the progression is more like a nudge than actual movement. I think Kingdom Hearts 3 will just needs to reveal the stuff that the other games have set up for it. Doesn't necessarily need to explain anything...but maybe I am wrong and you have something in mind.
decoyplatypus
Member
We're close to arguing semantics, but to say KH's story is "confused" means that it is all mixed up -- a shorthand for "incomprehensible." The sentence labels the story confused, not the player. "Confusing" would mean that the player is in the dark, but it wouldn't tell us much about whether the plot elements are actually there. Genuine plot holes can make a story confusing, after all.
I haven't played through any of the Halo campaigns, so I have no idea what finding their stories tough to follow would say about a person. But again, it strikes me as presumptuous to make the inference that he doesn't like sci-fi stories or intricate plots (which seems to give KH too much credit).
We're talking about Sats, the one who started this thread because he/she wondered if he/she was weird for being able to follow the story easily? For someone who is claiming unusual powers of comprehension, your attention to detail could use a little work.
Moreover, your argument only applies to people who believe KH's story makes sense but could stand to be less complicated. There are people in this thread implicitly arguing that KH's story flat out doesn't make sense, and your claim to understand it completely only means that you didn't follow the ways in which it is internally inconsistent.
There are many, many reasons why KH has not been made into a movie. Complexity is not one of them. There are plenty of television shows that trade on an enormous number of details built up over multiple seasons. The medium handles novelistic storytelling pretty well, as a matter of fact. At the end of the day they are videogames because Square-Enix makes videogames, not movies.
PshycoNinja
Member
People are emotionally invested. Cannot deny that.
http://youtu.be/43GPGbx7QIE
http://youtu.be/-yE4WEyFlK0
http://youtu.be/jzyfrg6Ufb8
Personally, I don't think a story that could get people to do this with an announcement is all that bad...
http://youtu.be/43GPGbx7QIE
http://youtu.be/-yE4WEyFlK0
http://youtu.be/jzyfrg6Ufb8
Personally, I don't think a story that could get people to do this with an announcement is all that bad...
The Return of
Banned
In some ways they are confusing, but I think that's mostly because the way the story is presented is why. Anyway not that I care much for the story since I find it pretty shitty. Looking forward to what improvements they make to the gameplay
KH has so many side stories (and yes, they are side stories, hence none of them having mainline status, this is inarguable) that its fanbase is now split into factions who herald the games against one another. There are people claiming the handheld side stories have as much clout as the mainline titles and some even tout them as superior to the main games.
No, if you have a brain and care enough, it's easy to follow if you just play the games. I haven't even played 3D yet but outside of that I understand the story just fine.
Some may argue it's badly written, but it's not impossible to follow.
Spend less time whining about it and more time learning about it is what I say.
Or do this if you need the story spoonfed to you in a single video.
Exactly. This is elementary level stuff, people.
Your definition of spinoff is one I have not heard then. I use the term as applied to most media - Revengeance is a spinoff of MGS, Smallville is a spinoff of Superman etc. The strictest definition of spinoff is analogous to the Japanese 'Gaiden' - that is, an entry that expounds or fleshes out (a) particular plot point(s). Mario Party et. al are subseries under the umbrella branding that forms the Mario franchise.
Enough of being a Grammar Nazi. I rather hope that the KH team starts work pronto, but it looks as though XV takes priority (as it should). As to me - well, I am resigned to waiting.
PshycoNinja
Member
The KH fanbase doesn't really have "factions" and all generally agree with each other. Not much argument amongst the diehards.
Can't say the same about other series fanbases (looking at the FINAL FANTASY fanbase).
Oh yes it does, and they do argue with each other
they just aren't nearly as vicious as other fanbases (like FF). The diehards are all in one faction which explains why they don't argue. lol