Support NeoGAF

[Malyse]

Welcome back DD. You juniors oughta be more careful!

Was I missed? :O

Also in response to the worlds.

I wouldn't expect anything from Star Wars, Indiana Jones, the Muppets, or Pixar to hop in just yet. This is looking to be the least Disney centric game in the franchise and, considering how clumsily the Disney and Xehanort plot integration was handled in KH2 (aka lots of revisitings) and how Disney unfocused BBS and 3D were, I would not want them to waste a good world and have to strip it down for story purposes. Something like Frozen, with a fairly uncomplicated plot, would do well. It would be rather simple to interweave Xehanort's machinations into that world. Other films, like The Black Cauldron, should be saved for either KH4 or BBSV2. Also, as the plot ties so heavily to what has come before, I think KH3 has a distinct likely hood of recycling worlds, more so than any other main game in the franchise.

 

[badcrumble]

I think KH2's revisit-every-world thing was an deliberate design choice, not an accident brought about by clumsy storytelling. They thought they'd get more mileage out of each world. But yeah, the Disney stories mostly felt a lot more paper-thin and there was no longer really much of an overarching Disney side to the story (outside of the Pete subplot). I blame that on poor writing more than anything else (especially the constant repetition of Sora, Donald, Goofy - it didn't help that the cutscenes were more poorly-directed compared to KH1 - KH1 had the amazing Jun Akiyama handling that, who also did it for Vagrant Story and FFXII and will be doing it for FFXV).

I think we'll be surprised at how much Disney there is in the game - that's the main draw for a huge, huge amount of fans and part of what distinguishes Kingdom Hearts from just being a well-executed ARPG.

If we *were* to see a huge amount of Disney world recycling, it'd probably be a choice to have us revisit every single Princess of Heart world (Wonderland, Dwarf Woodlands, Agrabah, Beast's Castle, Castle of Dreams, and Enchanted Dominion).

But based on the Kingdom Shader work that has been discussed and some of what we saw in KH2, I think that a major point of Kingdom Hearts 3 will be having each world feel really strongly visually different in a way that'll be reflected in Sora himself. And design principles decide what a game will be like even more than story choices (as does outside pressure regarding which Disney-owned IPs are most popular). So we're likely to get more stuff based on CG films, on live-action, on claymation, on old-style animation like Timeless River, et cetera, I think.

 

[Napalm_Frank]

Was I missed? :O

What would a KH community be without someone who favs DDD? We allready got too many Days crazies!

Now if only there was someone on the Coded/Chi camp to complete the family.

 

[Malyse]

What would a KH community be without someone who favs DDD? We allready got too many Days crazies!

Now if only there was someone on the Coded/Chi camp to complete the family.

I'm super in the [chi] camp. I'm level 111 and run a [chi] blog after all.

And from a pure gameplay perspective, I like RE:coded most of all. I appreciate all the experimentation that they did in that game and I hope that it's something they'll iterate on in 3.

 

[badcrumble]

I'm super in the [chi] camp. I'm level 111 and run a [chi] blog after all.

And from a pure gameplay perspective, I like RE:coded most of all. I appreciate all the experimentation that they did in that game and I hope that it's something they'll iterate on in 3.

Yeah, if a major visual focus in KH3 is going to be making each world look more distinctly different (and having Sora look more distinctly different in each one), I kind of want to see each one play a bit differently too.

 

[Malyse]

Yeah, if a major visual focus in KH3 is going to be making each world look more distinctly different (and having Sora look more distinctly different in each one), I kind of want to see each one play a bit differently too.

T'would be nice if they did more of "Sora needs to integrate into the worlds" and less" we'll make the worlds fit into Kingdom Heart's design sensibilities"

 

[ZenaxPure]

Yeah, if a major visual focus in KH3 is going to be making each world look more distinctly different (and having Sora look more distinctly different in each one), I kind of want to see each one play a bit differently too.

I don't think I want to see KH3 go as far as Re:coded did, but, it would be cool if there was something more like the reality shift mechanic. As in something extra that adds to the gameplay but is different world to world. I think I'd be a bummed out in I went to a world in KH3 and it turned into like a platformer again.

 

[Napalm_Frank]

I don't think I want to see KH3 go as far as Re:coded did, but, it would be cool if there was something more like the reality shift mechanic. As in something extra that adds to the gameplay but is different world to world. I think I'd be a bummed out in I went to a world in KH3 and it turned into like a platformer again.

I can see it right now, SE japan has had trouble with HD development right? How about:

Great Mouse Detective: reskinned Murdered: Soul Suspect
Jungle Book: reskinned Tomb Raider
Treasure Planet: reskinned Deus Ex
POTC2-3: reskinned Thief
ect!

 

[badcrumble]

T'would be nice if they did more of "Sora needs to integrate into the worlds" and less" we'll make the worlds fit into Kingdom Heart's design sensibilities"

Well, KH1 kinda did that with Halloween Town (appearance), Neverland (gameplay) and Atlantica (appearance and gameplay).

KH2 did it with Halloween Town, Timeless River, and Space Paranoids (appearance), Atlantica (appearance, and gameplay was turned into a minigame), and Pride Lands (appearance and gameplay).

But yeah, videogames really need to have generally-consistent controls in order to feel like a coherent experience, so I don't expect Sora to play wildly differently in every world. Something like DDD's Reality Shift variation per-world could be a start, though that felt way too janky and minigame-ish in my opinion.

A big part of how each Disney world feels different is your partner, and KH2 improved upon this with the co-op moves you could pull off with them. However, a major flaw in the partner system so far has been that you can't have four characters in your party at a time and there's a lot of incentive to just stick to a Sora/Donald/Goofy party all the time. I think that if KH3 allows parties of any size (so you could have Sora/Donald/Goofy/Peter Pan, or Sora/Donald/Goofy/Aladdin/Genie), that and the Kingdom Shader/different costumes would go a LONG way toward making each world feel differently flavored from the rest.

I also think that giving the game the ability to have parties of any size is going to be pretty essential for the endgame, where the group of heroes is going to be much, much bigger than just Sora/Donald/Goofy.

The main reason this hasn't been done in the past is RAM limitations, so far as I know. There's not really a valid gameplay reason to keep parties limited to three that I can think of.

 

[Malyse]

Well, KH1 kinda did that with Halloween Town (appearance), Neverland (gameplay) and Atlantica (appearance and gameplay).

KH2 did it with Halloween Town, Timeless River, and Space Paranoids (appearance), Atlantica (appearance, and gameplay was turned into a minigame), and Pride Lands (appearance and gameplay).

But yeah, videogames really need to have generally-consistent controls in order to feel like a coherent experience, so I don't expect Sora to play wildly differently in every world. Something like DDD's Reality Shift variation per-world could be a start, though that felt way too janky and minigame-ish in my opinion.

A big part of how each Disney world feels different is your partner, and KH2 improved upon this with the co-op moves you could pull off with them. However, a major flaw in the partner system so far has been that you can't have four characters in your party at a time and there's a lot of incentive to just stick to a Sora/Donald/Goofy party all the time. I think that if KH3 allows parties of any size (so you could have Sora/Donald/Goofy/Peter Pan, or Sora/Donald/Goofy/Aladdin/Genie), that and the Kingdom Shader/different costumes would go a LONG way toward making each world feel differently flavored from the rest.

I also think that giving the game the ability to have parties of any size is going to be pretty essential for the endgame, where the group of heroes is going to be much, much bigger than just Sora/Donald/Goofy.

The main reason this hasn't been done in the past is RAM limitations, so far as I know. There's not really a valid gameplay reason to keep parties limited to three that I can think of.

strictly referring to "don't let anyone know there are other worlds"

Also, no replies to that long post. T__T

 

[ZenaxPure]

Something like DDD's Reality Shift variation per-world could be a start, though that felt way too janky and minigame-ish in my opinion.

Yeah, that is why I specifically said something similar to reality shift. Conceptually it's a cool idea, but, most of them were pretty lame and specifically in relation to what you are talking about didn't fit the theme of the world (or at least I can't think of how throwing barrels at enemies fit the "theme" of traverse town). I think the hacking one in the Tron world is a good example myself, it fit the theme of the world very well and gave you a few limited options on what to do with enemies (control/destroy/ally).

As far as non-minigame feeling things go I like the idea of playing as a lion in KH2 but much like the rest of the game I found it shallow and poorly executed. That said, I would like to see them bring it back and actually make it fun in KH3.

 

[Napalm_Frank]

strictly referring to "don't let anyone know there are other worlds"

Also, no replies to that long post. T__T

I haven't prepared myself enough to read it yet!

 

[Malyse]

I haven't prepared myself enough to read it yet!

Gird your loins and do it.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I raised this question on reddit and I would ask the same of neogaf:

How should KH3 handle multiple player characters?

(I'm not referring to multiplayer. I'm referring to multiple protagonists a la Birth by Sleep and 3D.)

Considering again the breadth of story needed to cover in the final chapter of the Xehanort Saga, I think it would be wise for KH3 to not load all of the story onto poor Sora's shoulders. Plus considering KH2, BBS, Days, and 3D all had multiple playable characters at one point or the other, it's not all that big a stretch to assume that KH3 will as well.

So the question is how then should the multiple characters problem be tackled?

We can tell from the iterative design* of Kingdom Hearts games that they are planning some solution to this.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Concept 1: Birth by Sleep - You have multiple characters each with their own independent save file with an interwoven narrative and upon completion of all of them, unlock a final story.

Pros: Very simple and straight forward.
Cons: Kind of a pain in the ass juggling saves. Going through the same worlds over and over.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Concept 2: Dream Drop Distance - You have the characters swap at predetermined intervals. May or may not be in the middle of battle.

Pros: Single save plus the best implementation of narrative integration.
Cons: Going through the same worlds over and over. Drop during a boss fight. I don't think I need to say more.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Concept 3: 358/2 Days a la GTAV - You choose who you want to play when you want to play them with some restrictions.

Pros: You get to play as who you want, when you want. (My name is Master Aqua. Now return my friend's heart or pay the price!)
Cons: It would be a hell of a lot of work to make different scenarios for each choice, meaning they would prolly just do the same dialogue and such regardless of who you play as which would be totally lame.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Concept 4: Divergent paths (not seen in series before) - Basically, while Aqua's in Kauaʻi with Stitch, Riku is helping Kuzco with Kuzcotopia, and Sora is helping Taran and Eilonwy in Prydain. Can be used in conjunction with the previous concepts.

Pros: It would make playing as each character more refreshing, as you wouldn't be retreading ground.
Cons: It would either be a ton of work to design a number of non overlapping worlds for each player character or each character would only get a handful of worlds in which to play. Plus there's the all too real possiblity that each character only get one or two worlds and the rest be overlapped.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Concept 5: Reverse/Rebirth - You play the entirety of KH3 as Sora and upon completion, you unlock the ability to play as Riku. Beat it again for Aqua, ect ect.

Pros: Twice the game for your buck!
Cons: The internet would immediately spoil the surprise, especially if KH3 doesn't do any all regions release. Plus, there's a very real possibility of fatigue setting in. I mean, I still haven't finished RE:CoM's RR mode, simply because it's the sixth time I'm playing the damn thing (GBA CoM, GBA RR, KH2FM+ CoM, KH2FM+ RR, RE:CoM English, RE:RR English...). And now with ReMix... but I digress.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Concept 6: Party System a la FFXIII - suggested by scarymonkey11622

Instead of having to pick through seven characters, there would be three main groups. Sora Donald and Goofy, Riku Kairi and Lea, Ven Aqua and King Mickey. Sora Donald and Goofy would traverse through worlds in the realm of light (Disney worlds), Aqua Ven and Mickey would investigate places like the realm of darkness and worlds in between, and Riku would be training Kairi and Lea (different Disney worlds).
Everyone has their own set of skills and worlds that they can explore. Once you reach a certain point in the story, all the other worlds will be unlocked. For example, Soras party won't have the ability to go to Castle Oblivion like Mickey's party. But once those two party's meet, Sora now has the ability to go there. This brings back the platforming element to Kingdom Hearts that was lost in DDD. For instance, only Sora can use glide, only Aqua can double jump, and only Riku can manipulate darkness to find certain areas otherwise inaccessible.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Concept 7: a mixture suggested by TlMB0

You'd start off the game with Sora, Riku, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy as available party members. You can roam Yen Sid and can now be put in your party. Aqua is freed from the Realm of Darkness and she joins the crew. Ven comes soon after that, and Terra finally (likely near the end of the game?).
Whilst exploring the worlds, doing side quests, and just doing whatever you want, you can choose to use any party you'd like. But mainline story missions and certain side missions would require either specific parties, or a specific character in your party. For example, you'd have to have a part consisting of Riku, Mickey, and one other member while searching for Aqua in the Realm of Darkness. You must have Aqua as the party leader while working your way to find Ven's body in Castle Oblivion. You must play as Lea for the mission that involves taking out Isa. You must play as Sora, Donald, and Goofy for the final battle. That kind of thing.
Most of the mainline missions require Sora, as this is definitely his story over all, but it also gives the other characters each their own moments in the spotlight and allows for you to play as whoever you'd like to while you are just messing around.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Concept 8: You tell me. If there are any that I missed/a game that did multiple protagonists well that I failed to mention, please share.

*for example, we can be fairly certain that the battle system will likely be an evolution of the deck concept utilized in RE:coded, BBS, and 3D. Also, some merged form of the Style from BBS, Overclock from RE:coded, and Drive from KH2 will be in the game as well, plus some form of either player character customization or keyblade customization as in Days, 3D, and RE:coded.

Concept 9: switch hitting a la Sonic Adventure 2. World with Sora, world with Aqua, world with Riku, ect ect.


On a side note, [chi] just started killing off characters. Looks like things are getting serious.

 

[badcrumble]

Yeah, that is why I specifically said something similar to reality shift. Conceptually it's a cool idea, but, most of them were pretty lame and specifically in relation to what you are talking about didn't fit the theme of the world (or at least I can't think of how throwing barrels at enemies fit the "theme" of traverse town). I think the hacking one in the Tron world is a good example myself, it fit the theme of the world very well and gave you a few limited options on what to do with enemies (control/destroy/ally).

As far as non-minigame feeling things go I like the idea of playing as a lion in KH2 but much like the rest of the game I found it shallow and poorly executed. That said, I would like to see them bring it back and actually make it fun in KH3.

I think the problems with KH2 Pride Lands and KH1 Atlantica (and to an extent KH1 Neverland) is that they change the controls to alter gameplay, when in fact the controls in a game should basically be the most consistent thing about it.

 

[Makoto Yuki]

I think the problems with KH2 Pride Lands and KH1 Atlantica (and to an extent KH1 Neverland) is that they change the controls to alter gameplay, when in fact the controls in a game should basically be the most consistent thing about it.

I didn't mind the controls in KH2 Pride Lands so much. KH1 Atlantica... >_>... not a fan of swimming. KH1 Neverland was alright, I found the flying to be pretty manageable, and quite enjoyable after you get the hang of it. I don't remember KH2 having full on magic flight like the one in KH1, part of me missed it.

 

[Psxphile]

On top of that, I think that there's a chance of BBSV2 still coming out to fill in some of the back story, much in the same way that Days was used to fill in story gaps.

The only problem with that is it seems Nomura is done crafting side-games for the series and wants to dive into KH3 proper ([chi] notwithstanding).

I touched on this vaguely in a previous post: Kingdom Hearts Coded and Re:Coded contained scenes from the first game's journey that weren't known before to either Sora or Jiminy and yet they existed within the data. Now, we know that 2.5's Re:Coded "port" is going to have additional cutscenes that didn't exist in the previous versions of the game. What we expect to see is more interaction between Data Sora and the other Re:Coded characters, but there's potential for SE to toss in some hidden story scenes that go into more detail about what happened in the Dark Realm between games.

Imagine "completing" ReMIX Re:Coded and watching the secret ending, going back to BBS Final Mix and completing Secret Episode and watching that ending as well as saving your data, then going back to Re:Coded, having it check your save files and being greeted with a [UNLOCKED DARK REALM SECRET FILES] message.

I mean, yeah... it's not the BBSV2 starring Master Aqua that we all wanted to experience but it's still better than nothing.

I raised this question on reddit and I would ask the same of neogaf:

How should KH3 handle multiple player characters?

(I'm not referring to multiplayer. I'm referring to multiple protagonists a la Birth by Sleep and 3D.)

Considering again the breadth of story needed to cover in the final chapter of the Xehanort Saga, I think it would be wise for KH3 to not load all of the story onto poor Sora's shoulders. Plus considering KH2, BBS, Days, and 3D all had multiple playable characters at one point or the other, it's not all that big a stretch to assume that KH3 will as well.

So the question is how then should the multiple characters problem be tackled?

I fully expect to play as Kairi in some kind of half-tutorial/half-real mission mode at the beginning of the game as we did with Roxas in KH2 (and what Capcom had planned for Mega Man Legends 3 once upon a time) before being back in control of Sora. After that, I'm not sure.

I think I said this in an earlier post before, but another concept to explore would be much like the hot-swap method you mentioned, but treated as a power-up/form change: an augmentation of BBS's Dimension Link where, instead of merely borrowing the target's powers, you instead form-change into that character w/ boosted or augmented stats and a unique moveset/command deck for a limited time. You literally become Roxas/Xion/Aqua/Riku for brief spurts of time before changing back into Sora... a bit of a play on "everyone's heart is connected to Sora" that permeates the series. In this method, you can play as anyone and everyone, yet you only have to concern yourself with Sora's growth as the game progresses, instead of multiple characters who might get neglected. And those characters whose powers and form are being borrowed can be a part of the story without the need to be around Sora 24/7. Donald and Goofy can remain Sora's partners too, without fear of being replaced by the newest Keyblade-wielding hotness. It's already gonna be a juggling act whenever you come to a world with a Disney hero you can recruit (hopefully they allow for temp party status and increase your party count to 4 instead of forcing you to leave out Donald/Goofy).

Then again, some people like the idea of having a huge party of characters, each with their own stats and growth that they can track and manage separately. Anyway, it's an idea.

 

[Malyse]

The only problem with that is it seems Nomura is done crafting side-games for the series and wants to dive into KH3 proper ([chi] notwithstanding).

I name checked Days for a reason. Days takes place between 1 and 2, but was released after 2. I'm saying that there is a space for them to release BBSV2 after three and use it to clean up anything they couldn't fit into 3, like what Isa and Lea were planning when they were trying to get into Ansem's Castle.

I think I said this in an earlier post before, but another concept to explore would be much like the hot-swap method you mentioned, but treated as a power-up/form change: an augmentation of BBS's Dimension Link where, instead of merely borrowing the target's powers, you instead form-change into that character w/ boosted or augmented stats and a unique moveset/command deck for a limited time. You literally become Roxas/Xion/Aqua/Riku for brief spurts of time before changing back into Sora... a bit of a play on "everyone's heart is connected to Sora" that permeates the series. In this method, you can play as anyone and everyone, yet you only have to concern yourself with Sora's growth as the game progresses, instead of multiple characters who might get neglected. And those characters whose powers and form are being borrowed can be a part of the story without the need to be around Sora 24/7. Donald and Goofy can remain Sora's partners too, without fear of being replaced by the newest Keyblade-wielding hotness. It's already gonna be a juggling act whenever you come to a world with a Disney hero you can recruit (hopefully they allow for temp party status and increase your party count to 4 instead of forcing you to leave out Donald/Goofy).

Then again, some people like the idea of having a huge party of characters, each with their own stats and growth that they can track and manage separately. Anyway, it's an idea.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. Now if we were to approach it a la Type-0, that might work, but Driving into other characters? I would hate to see them narratively justify that. Plus it has the potential to completely break any future games, much like how The Avengers sort of breaks the Marvel Cinematic Universe (a strange analogy, but stick with me). For example, there's no reason that Tony Stark couldn't have called Captain America for the plot of Iron Man 3. In fact, considering who was involved, it would have made a hell of a lot of sense to do so. Same hold for Superman spinning the earth backward to save the day. After that, there's no reason anything too bad should ever happen again: he literally had a redo at all times. In the same sense, a gameplay function where Sora could literally turn into a variety of people could potentially break KH forever IMO.

 

[Psxphile]

I name checked Days for a reason. Days takes place between 1 and 2, but was released after 2. I'm saying that there is a space for them to release BBSV2 after three and use it to clean up anything they couldn't fit into 3, like what Isa and Lea were planning when they were trying to get into Ansem's Castle.

I think some people might be disappointed if the next Kingdom Hearts game after what is supposed to be the grand finale to the Xehanort saga is just a retread of old plot points that should have been tied up beforehand instead of moving Sora's journey to the next stage.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. Now if we were to approach it a la Type-0, that might work, but Driving into other characters? I would hate to see them narratively justify that. Plus it has the potential to completely break any future games, much like how The Avengers sort of breaks the Marvel Cinematic Universe (a strange analogy, but stick with me). For example, there's no reason that Tony Stark couldn't have called Captain America for the plot of Iron Man 3. In fact, considering who was involved, it would have made a hell of a lot of sense to do so. Same hold for Superman spinning the earth backward to save the day. After that, there's no reason anything too bad should ever happen again: he literally had a redo at all times. In the same sense, a gameplay function where Sora could literally turn into a variety of people could potentially break KH forever IMO.

Only to be replaced by an even sillier and possibly more OP power-up in the next game. We'll be lucky to ever see KH2DriveForms/CommandStyles/ShotLocks/DreamEaterFusion again.

 

[Malyse]

I think some people might be disappointed if the next Kingdom Hearts game after what is supposed to be the grand finale to the Xehanort saga is just a retread of old plot points that should have been tied up beforehand instead of moving Sora's journey to the next stage.

People are disappointed that they haven't made KH3, even though BBS and 3D are direct sequels that expand the plot. The KH fandom is kinda awful, so I really don't care if they are upset TBH. Furthermore, KH3 has a hell of a lot of plot threads leading into it; over a decades worth, in fact. Much like we didn't need to know what the daily life of OrgXIII was like, we don't need to know what Lea and Isa were plotting, we don't need to know what Mickey and Riku were doing between KH1 and 2, we don't need to know where Master Xehanort picked up the Baphomet Foreteller's keyblade. Much like CoM was used to justify parts of KH2 (Sora's ability reset, Riku's return from the dark) as well as introduce new concepts (formal introduction to OrgXIII), a BBSV2 could simultaneously fill in any story gaps or oversights from KH3 and well as introduce concepts for KH4. And much like Days, CoM, and RE:coded, it could be handled in such a way that players who skip it won't be completely lost, but players who play it would gain further insight to the series.

More to the point: there is no way in nine hells that the next game after KH3 is KH4. That's not happening.

 

[badcrumble]

I don't think that a Birth By Sleep Volume 2 would cover stuff about Xehanort (or Lea/Isa either), really. I think it would be more likely for it to be about Aqua and eventually about King Mickey's search for the keyblade from the World of Darkness (and perhaps eventually also about Aqua encountering Ansem the Wise). It would have to be focused.

Having a game that was just a checklist of unfinished business would be awful, but the World of Darkness stuff is something that could actually plausibly be turned into a single coherent story and potentially be used to set up the next big Kingdom Hearts villain.

(as for the Lea and Isa business, if that ever gets revisited we can expect it to be in a flashback in KH3 whenever Isa/Saix does his inevitable face turn because of his friendship with Lea. Gotta hit that unsubtle KH melodrama hard.)

As for how KH3 will or might handle telling the stories of several different characters, I'll address that soon. Got quite a few thoughts on that as well.

 

[badcrumble]

Concept 1: Birth by Sleep - You have multiple characters each with their own independent save file with an interwoven narrative and upon completion of all of them, unlock a final story.

Pros: Very simple and straight forward.
Cons: Kind of a pain in the ass juggling saves. Going through the same worlds over and over.

I think Birth By Sleep was fantastic and flowed a hell of a lot better than Dream Drop Distance, but I know people who beat it with a single character and were like "eh, why play the same game twice again?"

This is fucking CRAZY talk but I think that kind of thing is why Team Osaka didn't use a similar system in Dream Drop Distance even though it worked well for them in Re:CoM and BBS. I think a likely goal, especially for KH3, which will go to a broader audience and thus probably needs to be more accessible, is that you just hit "new game" and pick a difficulty level and you're off to the races. Even though I really love the way it worked in BBS, I don't expect that to be the way of things in KH3.

Concept 2: Dream Drop Distance - You have the characters swap at predetermined intervals. May or may not be in the middle of battle.

Pros: Single save plus the best implementation of narrative integration.
Cons: Going through the same worlds over and over. Drop during a boss fight. I don't think I need to say more.

Nope. This list of cons pretty much covers it (though, like BBS, the worlds played out differently enough per-character that I don't think the overlap is a big deal). This just results in really terrible pacing, IMO - either you end up deliberately holding one character back so that both characters proceed through the story at roughly the same pace, you don't hold one character back and one of them feels perpetually behind and like a slog to play as, or you try to have Sora and Riku go through the sleeping worlds in totally different order from each other and everything just ends up feeling thoroughly disjointed. None of these are good options, I'm afraid.

Concept 3: 358/2 Days a la GTAV - You choose who you want to play when you want to play them with some restrictions.

Pros: You get to play as who you want, when you want. (My name is Master Aqua. Now return my friend's heart or pay the price!)
Cons: It would be a hell of a lot of work to make different scenarios for each choice, meaning they would prolly just do the same dialogue and such regardless of who you play as which would be totally lame.

This one absolutely won't happen - KH is a pretty narrative-heavy game and there's no good way to square this approach with that.

Concept 4: Divergent paths (not seen in series before) - Basically, while Aqua's in Kauaʻi with Stitch, Riku is helping Kuzco with Kuzcotopia, and Sora is helping Taran and Eilonwy in Prydain. Can be used in conjunction with the previous concepts.

Pros: It would make playing as each character more refreshing, as you wouldn't be retreading ground.
Cons: It would either be a ton of work to design a number of non overlapping worlds for each player character or each character would only get a handful of worlds in which to play. Plus there's the all too real possiblity that each character only get one or two worlds and the rest be overlapped.

I don't think that the playing-through-the-same-worlds thing is as much of a 'con' as you think, so I don't think that's a "problem" they'll be looking to solve with KH3. But I also suspect that they won't give each character equal playtime like they generally aimed for with BBS/DDD. (I'll talk about that in my next post once I'm done going through all of these)

Concept 5: Reverse/Rebirth - You play the entirety of KH3 as Sora and upon completion, you unlock the ability to play as Riku. Beat it again for Aqua, ect ect.

Pros: Twice the game for your buck!
Cons: The internet would immediately spoil the surprise, especially if KH3 doesn't do any all regions release. Plus, there's a very real possibility of fatigue setting in. I mean, I still haven't finished RE:CoM's RR mode, simply because it's the sixth time I'm playing the damn thing (GBA CoM, GBA RR, KH2FM+ CoM, KH2FM+ RR, RE:CoM English, RE:RR English...). And now with ReMix... but I digress.

I don't think this sort of thing would need to be a surprise. However, I also think they'd want all stories to build toward the same big climax rather than separate climaxes as we saw in Re:CoM.

Concept 6: Party System a la FFXIII - suggested by scarymonkey11622

Instead of having to pick through seven characters, there would be three main groups. Sora Donald and Goofy, Riku Kairi and Lea, Ven Aqua and King Mickey. Sora Donald and Goofy would traverse through worlds in the realm of light (Disney worlds), Aqua Ven and Mickey would investigate places like the realm of darkness and worlds in between, and Riku would be training Kairi and Lea (different Disney worlds).
Everyone has their own set of skills and worlds that they can explore. Once you reach a certain point in the story, all the other worlds will be unlocked. For example, Soras party won't have the ability to go to Castle Oblivion like Mickey's party. But once those two party's meet, Sora now has the ability to go there. This brings back the platforming element to Kingdom Hearts that was lost in DDD. For instance, only Sora can use glide, only Aqua can double jump, and only Riku can manipulate darkness to find certain areas otherwise inaccessible.

I think something like this sounds pretty cool. However, I think figuring out how things will go depends very heavily on what the purpose is of the Disney worlds this time around.

Concept 7: a mixture suggested by TlMB0

You'd start off the game with Sora, Riku, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy as available party members. You can roam Yen Sid and can now be put in your party. Aqua is freed from the Realm of Darkness and she joins the crew. Ven comes soon after that, and Terra finally (likely near the end of the game?).
Whilst exploring the worlds, doing side quests, and just doing whatever you want, you can choose to use any party you'd like. But mainline story missions and certain side missions would require either specific parties, or a specific character in your party. For example, you'd have to have a part consisting of Riku, Mickey, and one other member while searching for Aqua in the Realm of Darkness. You must have Aqua as the party leader while working your way to find Ven's body in Castle Oblivion. You must play as Lea for the mission that involves taking out Isa. You must play as Sora, Donald, and Goofy for the final battle. That kind of thing.
Most of the mainline missions require Sora, as this is definitely his story over all, but it also gives the other characters each their own moments in the spotlight and allows for you to play as whoever you'd like to while you are just messing around.

I like the idea of this but worry that it'd feel too unstructured (especially if you get really used to playing as one character and are then forced into a boss battle using another).

Concept 8: You tell me. If there are any that I missed/a game that did multiple protagonists well that I failed to mention, please share.

*for example, we can be fairly certain that the battle system will likely be an evolution of the deck concept utilized in RE:coded, BBS, and 3D. Also, some merged form of the Style from BBS, Overclock from RE:coded, and Drive from KH2 will be in the game as well, plus some form of either player character customization or keyblade customization as in Days, 3D, and RE:coded.

I'll go into this in the post following this.

 

[badcrumble]

I think that guessing at how KH3 might work absolutely needs to start with guessing at the purposes of the Disney worlds in the game to follow.

The goals we're seeing for KH3's protagonists seem to be as follows:

-Retrieve Master Aqua from the World of Darkness (a likely Riku joint)
-With Aqua in tow, proceed to Castle Oblivion, restore it to the Land of Departure, and give Ventus's heart-fragment back to him from Sora (which requires, at the very least, Aqua and Sora)

This would presumably get us up to the requisite seven Keyblade wielders (Aqua, Ventus, Sora, Riku, Kairi, Mickey, Lea).

Following this, I presume there'd be a push to free Terranort from MX's control over his body, but that doesn't *necessarily* have to happen until the endgame.

None of this, however, creates a justification for the necessary inclusion of Disney worlds in the game. Organization XIII's have-Sora-kill-lots-of-Heartless plot from KH2 doesn't really work anymore, and nor does anything about locking the hearts of worlds.

Master Xehanort mentioned in KHDD that if the seven keyblade wielders refuse to face him, he'll just go after the Princesses of Heart instead. THAT'S a reason for Disney worlds to be included. I could see this being a plot element that crops up in KH3, but given that there are a bunch of properties Disney/Squeenix will want to include that don't necessarily include princesses (let alone the ones who have been described as Princesses of Heart), I don't think it's sufficient to justify everything that'll be happening in the game.

I'm honestly not sure what'll justify the Disney worlds being a part of the game, so it might end up being a new story element (some sort of new macguffin that Sora needs to collect, perhaps).

However, here's a way I think the game could control pacing fairly well while still having a number of playable stories: something like the chapter system from some of the Suikoden games, or like we saw in Resident Evil 6.

Think of it this way: the game starts off with a tutorial chapter in which you play as Kairi (this is basically a guarantee, I think).

Following this, you can choose to play Riku Chapter 1 or Sora Chapter 1. (Let's just assume that it'll start off with Sora/Donald/Goofy and Riku/Kairi/Lea, with Mickey playing a playable-if-you-die-in-certain-boss-battles role similar to what he had in KH2).

Then assume that there are certain chapter requirements that must be completed in order to unlock subsequent ones (to be sure that all parts of the story keep pace with the others). But you could play through the chapters like Sora/Riku/Sora/Riku/Sora/Riku or Sora/Sora/Sora/Riku/Riku/Riku.

I think there are certain things that this approach would require, one of them being a way to share certain upgrades among your entire party (Bonus Level could handle this pretty well, I think, as could something akin to Birth By Sleep's pleasantly simple passive-ability system).

It would also require some interesting changes in the climactic endgame chapter (for example, how do you handle the sheer number of protagonists that need to be there for the climax?) but I feel like it would end up being a better-paced cross between Birth By Sleep and Dream Drop Distance that would never allow the story to go off the rails.

 

[ZenaxPure]

In regards to "why would we go to these random disney worlds again?" I just assume they will introduce some new enemy type (though between emotions, computer code, heartless, empty shells, dreams, and memories I'm not sure what they could even add at this point) that Sora will have to run off and kill.

So yeah, a macguffin.

 

[badcrumble]

In regards to "why would we go to these random disney worlds again?" I just assume they will introduce some new enemy type (though between emotions, computer code, heartless, empty shells, dreams, and memories I'm not sure what they could even add at this point) that Sora will have to run off and kill.

So yeah, a macguffin.

I don't think Dream Eaters are likely to be making a comeback, but I could see KH3 involving Heartless (emblem and non-emblem), Nobodies, and Unversed.

A whole new enemy type, though, too? It's quite possible. Nomura does seem to like doing that for new 'major' games in the series, and it could potentially form a reason to return to the Disney worlds. I think it's important to remember, though, that most of the time these enemy types have been related to the final boss or a main villain of the game (Ansem SoD is a Heartless and is guarded by an Emblem Heartless; Xemnas is a Nobody; Vanitas is the original Unversed; even DDD sort of barely edges its way into qualifying by having you fight the Vanitas Nightmare as the game's final boss).

I'm not entirely sure the already-villain-packed KH3 would be able to do something like that - its villains are already pretty set in stone as being things already previously introduced to the series.

 

[ZenaxPure]

That was mostly my logic behind it, every new major game has had a new enemy type with some ties to the story. I figure KH3 would just follow the same trend. I don't think it's hard to imagine Xehanort unleashing some new enemy onto the world for X reason and Sora has to go clean it up. There is a million different story ways they could justify it.

 

[badcrumble]

That was mostly my logic behind it, every new major game has had a new enemy type with some ties to the story. I figure KH3 would just follow the same trend. I don't think it's hard to imagine Xehanort unleashing some new enemy onto the world for X reason and Sora has to go clean it up. There is a million different story ways they could justify it.

Probably a creature type related directly to Kingdom Hearts itself, given that we're almost certainly going to actually, finally go to Kingdom Hearts in KH3.

 

[Mitochondrion]

This is the first time I browsed this topic. I have not played Kingdom Hearts games. I read a bit of the first post. I could not help but notice the banner images. They look very impressive. Reminds me of Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2. So I want to know is that are they from the CG cutscenes? And which game is it from?

 

[Napalm_Frank]

This is the first time I browsed this topic. I have not played Kingdom Hearts games. I read a bit of the first post. I could not help but notice the banner images. They look very impressive. Reminds me of Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2. So I want to know is that are they from the CG cutscenes? And which game is it from?

Kingdom Hearts 2 opening + Dream Drop Distance opening

And yes it's CGI. PS2+3DS games after all.

 

[Mitochondrion]

Kingdom Hearts 2 opening + Dream Drop Distance opening

And yes it's CGI. PS2+3DS games after all.

Thanks. I can't believe it was on PlayStation 2. Square Enix really make the best CG cutscenes.

I watched a bit of Kingdom Hearts II gameplay. It is a bit like "hack 'n' slash". I see that you hit the enemies with a giant key, treating it like a sword. That is the main gameplay, right?

 

[Napalm_Frank]

I watched a bit of Kingdom Hearts II gameplay. It is a bit like "hack 'n' slash". I see that you hit the enemies with a giant key, treating it like a sword. That is the main gameplay, right?

Pretty much.

 

[badcrumble]

Not to distract from the more interesting conversations going on, but: what's everyone's favorite opening CG FMV to a KH game, of the four options available?

I feel like mine's got to be KH2, personally.

 

[Napalm_Frank]

Not to distract from the more interesting conversations going on, but: what's everyone's favorite opening CG FMV to a KH game, of the four options available?

I feel like mine's got to be KH2, personally.

KH2

Worst is BBS since it mostly is just reused stuff and reused music.

Tho best CG cutscene in the series period is KH2FM secret ending.

 

[Seven Force]

KHII's opening is nice, but I'm one of those people that isn't too fond of Sanctuary, so I'll have to go with Dream Drop Distance.

KHIIFM's secret movie is by far the best CG FMV in the series, though.

 

[Caladrius]

Thanks. I can't believe it was on PlayStation 2. Square Enix really make the best CG cutscenes.

I watched a bit of Kingdom Hearts II gameplay. It is a bit like "hack 'n' slash". I see that you hit the enemies with a giant key, treating it like a sword. That is the main gameplay, right?

Basically. The combat in In 2 vanilla is probably the most basic in the series. The numbered titles (except Birth By Sleep, which is considered KH 0) are fairly straightforward, but have demanding optional bosses that require you to take advantage of all the features and the intricacies of the games' combat in order to survive. The secondary installments and BBS make the player more fragile and use a system called the command deck that you can equip with a variety of special attacks to give you more firepower. These don't feature much post game content (besides, once again, Birth By Sleep) but have a more challenging main game.

 

[Napalm_Frank]

I like the DDD one but it kinda... feels too similar to the KH2 one.

 

[Seven Force]

I like the DDD one but it kinda... feels too similar to the KH2 one.

Well, yeah. The point of both intros are to recap the series up to that point in the flashiest way possible.

I dunno, I guess with DDD being an anniversary game and all, it's intro felt like a celebration of the series, in a sense.

 

[Mitochondrion]

Basically. The combat in In 2 vanilla is probably the most basic in the series. The numbered titles (except Birth By Sleep, which is considered KH 0) are fairly straightforward, but have demanding optional bosses that require you to take advantage of all the features and the intricacies of the games' combat in order to survive. The secondary installments and BBS make the player more fragile and use a system called the command deck that you can equip with a variety of special attacks to give you more firepower. These don't feature much post game content (besides, once again, Birth By Sleep) but have a more challenging main game.

Thanks for the GIFs. Looks interesting. I am tempted to try this. Too bad there is no demo on PSN store. I have played Metal Gear Rising Revegeance, Ninja Gaiden and DmC Devil May Cry. Does it play similar to these game? I don't want to torture myself to play the game if the gameplay is terrible. I don't care too much about the story. Does it have "deep mechanics"? Or is it like button mashing?

 

[ZenaxPure]

I watched a bit of Kingdom Hearts II gameplay. It is a bit like "hack 'n' slash". I see that you hit the enemies with a giant key, treating it like a sword. That is the main gameplay, right?

They are all action rpgs. I'm the biggest KH2 hater around here though so I will just go ahead and say it's pretty mindless and bad. KH1 is a better example if you want to see gameplay. The newer games are vastly different though and have a focus on slotting abilities and using those (along with a bunch of other sub systems). Combat-wise these latest few games have been my favorite action rpgs of all time, there is just so much you can do with the skills you are given. I was still learning new things on multiple playthroughs. I feel like at this point in my life I have played a wide breadth of action games and more importantly action rpgs and there is really nothing else out there that plays like the newer KH games.

As for favorite cinematic I think mine is probably the 3D one. It's basically a love letter to the entire series and it gives me "the feels" at the end when everyone is standing together, makes me reminiscence about the entire series as a whole. The KH2 one is really damn good too though. I couldn't remember the BBS one so I had to go youtube it and holy crap no wonder I forgot it, you weren't joking Napalm it's literally almost entirely made up of reused scenes. That's bad.

 

[Caladrius]

Thanks for the GIFs. Looks interesting. I am tempted to try this. Too bad there is no demo on PSN store. I have played Metal Gear Rising Revegeance, Ninja Gaiden and DmC Devil May Cry. Does it play similar to these game? I don't want to torture myself to play the game if the gameplay is terrible. I don't care too much about the story. Does it have "deep mechanics"? Or is it like button mashing?

On lower difficulties the game can devolve into button mashing, but in most games (Kingdom Hearts 1 HD, Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix/HD, all versions of Birth by Sleep and KH3D) the maximum diffculty provides a fair amount of challenge and requires you to make good use of your options. The games also lend themselves well to self-imposed challenges, letting you activate and remove skills as you please and provide the option to perform a level 1 run. The post-game optional bosses are by far the most interesting parts of the games (it's the main reason I play the series) and demand that you're intimately familiar with their attack patterns and that you know how to take advantage of your movement and defensive abilities (as well as attacks that grant invincibility frames) in order to counter their assaults.

This is a no-hit run of one of my favorites from 2 Final Mix http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-Bnp6168MA.(if you're level 1 in Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix almost any hit will kill you, so most lvl 1 runs translate to no-hit runs)
This is a regular one from Birth By Sleep: http://youtu.be/hM5lIJ0tmDI?t=32s

They are all action rpgs. I'm the biggest KH2 hater around here though so I will just go ahead and say it's pretty mindless and bad. KH1 is a better example if you want to see gameplay. The newer games are vastly different though and have a focus on slotting abilities and using those (along with a bunch of other sub systems). Combat-wise these latest few games have been my favorite action rpgs of all time, there is just so much you can do with the skills you are given. I was still learning new things on multiple playthroughs. I feel like at this point in my life I have played a wide breadth of action games and more importantly action rpgs and there is really nothing else out there that plays like the newer KH games.

KH2FM at least has a semblance of challenge and some fantastic optional bosses. That aside the newer games are definitely more intricate than the older ones.

 

[ZenaxPure]

KH2FM at least has a semblance of challenge and some fantastic optional bosses. That aside the newer games are definitely more intricate than the older ones.

I do look forward to playing KH2FM someday to see if it can sway my opinion (and maybe it can, in fact I hope it can because I love the series and don't want to just hate one of the games

Spoiler

except for Days

. As for which is more intricate I just look at the older games as different beasts. KH1 anyway is all about learning how the enemies behave and when you are supposed to attack, dodge, or block. I'm playing Dark Souls right now and in a lot of ways it reminds me of that type of game design, a bigger focus on the enemies and their movements than the core combat itself.

In the newer games though what enemies you are fighting is almost inconsequential because they give you enough tools that you can permanently crowd control every enemy if you play correctly. I guess in a sense on a technical level is more intricate, but, I see it as more of being different. As a side effect I don't think most of the bosses in the BBS/3D were particularly good because they felt like they were designed with the combat of earlier KH games in mind. I mean mines/balloon could completely crush basically every boss save a few (specifically the post-game stuff you mentioned), and those bosses that were challenging made the combat feel like the old games as there was a pretty strict method to defeating them with little room for experimentation (which is the strongest part of BBS/3D).

To bring it back home, though, that's generally where my dislike of KH2 comes from. I never found the core combat mechanics that engaging (as in you hit button, action happens) and I feel like they stripped away all of the enemy AI and replaced things you would normally have to learn if you were going to dodge or block with just mashing the fuck out of that triangle button. Fuck that triangle button.

 

[Mitochondrion]

On lower difficulties the game can devolve into button mashing, but in most games (Kingdom Hearts 1 HD, Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix/HD, all versions of Birth by Sleep and KH3D) the maximum diffculty provides a fair amount of challenge and requires you to make good use of your options. The games also lend themselves well to self-imposed challenges, letting you activate and remove skills as you please and provide the option to perform a level 1 run. The post-game optional bosses are by far the most interesting parts of the games (it's the main reason I play the series) and demand that you're intimately familiar with their attack patterns and that you know how to take advantage of your movement and defensive abilities (as well as attacks that grant invincibility frames) in order to counter their assaults.

This is a no-hit run of one of my favorites from 2 Final Mix http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-Bnp6168MA.(if you're level 1 in Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix almost any hit will kill you, so most lvl 1 runs translate to no-hit runs)
This is a regular one from Birth By Sleep: http://youtu.be/hM5lIJ0tmDI?t=32s



KH2FM at least has a semblance of challenge and some fantastic optional bosses. That aside the newer games are definitely more intricate than the older ones.

It is so annoying to go through YouTube search result to filter out long plays and useless pointless videos. I just want to see a sample of raw gameplay. Thank you for these links. Birth By Sleep intrigued me the most along with Kingdom Hearts 2. I might give these games a shot. I don't want to get it on PSP and PlayStation 2. So when is this Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix coming out?

How did this series come into existent? It uses Disney characters. Did Disney approach Square Enix or Square Enix approached Disney?

Also I heard that Final Fantasy XV gameplay is similar to Kingdom Hearts. I have seen the trailers. It does indeed look similar. I also heard XV will have shooting combat as well. So it will probably be a hybrid of "hack 'n' slash" and shooting.

 

[WeaponKnight]

To bring it back home, though, that's generally where my dislike of KH2 comes from. I never found the core combat mechanics that engaging (as in you hit button, action happens) and I feel like they stripped away all of the enemy AI and replaced things you would normally have to learn if you were going to dodge or block with just mashing the fuck out of that triangle button. Fuck that triangle button.

That's just a byproduct of the laughable difficulty. When you play the game on Critical and also at lv1, you get to know that KH2's combat can be a lot deeper when your life is on the line.

 

[Seda]

That's just a byproduct of the laughable difficulty. When you play the game on Critical and also at lv1, you get to know that KH2's combat can be a lot deeper when your life is on the line.

As I've said several times now, that laughable difficulty really soured me on KH2, so I'm very interested in Critical Mode and other tweaks to see how much it can improve the game. Even the slight difficulty bump for Proud Mode in KH1 I appreciated.

 

[ZenaxPure]

That's just a byproduct of the laughable difficulty. When you play the game on Critical and also at lv1, you get to know that KH2's combat can be a lot deeper when your life is on the line.

Level 1 runs don't really interest me much as I enjoy character progression/customization but really I doubt playing on critical would change much of what I have problems with. I actually just popped in KH2 after I typed that and jumped into the colosseum and was immediately offended when basically every enemy had some annoying triangle button gimmick. I just feel like it gets in the way, who cares about dodging or blocking when you just hit triangle to counter so many attacks. Especially because the window for the button input is SOOOOOO long compared to how short the parry window is.

The problem for me is not with challenge at all. Sora could have 1 HP and deal 1 damage per attack and that would technically be challenging since if you take damage you die, but, that doesn't change the mechanics of how you interact with the enemies which is what I don't like. Fixing KH2 for me would involve stripping out (or toning down) how many enemies you "hit triangle to win" on and making it closer to KH1.

 

[Malyse]

I don't think that a Birth By Sleep Volume 2 would cover stuff about Xehanort (or Lea/Isa either), really. I think it would be more likely for it to be about Aqua and eventually about King Mickey's search for the keyblade from the World of Darkness (and perhaps eventually also about Aqua encountering Ansem the Wise). It would have to be focused.

I think there's a possibility of us having to deal with Master Xehanort's Nobody. Remember, MX extracted his own heart and tossed it into Terra. A Nobody is formed when a heart is taken from someone with a strong will and I think it's safe to say that MX had a very strong will indeed. Plus in 3D, we see not Terra-Xehanort upon the throne, but Master Xehanort himself as an entelechy (look that word up, for it is awesome and perfect as a description). That means that his heartless and his nobody have been defeated. We can argue that Ansem SoD could be considered his Heartless, but Xemnas is Terra's body. So what happened to MX's?

Having a game that was just a checklist of unfinished business would be awful, but the World of Darkness stuff is something that could actually plausibly be turned into a single coherent story and potentially be used to set up the next big Kingdom Hearts villain.

I mentioned before, but I think the next story arc will be about the Foretellers and the sixth apprentice. That keyblade connection could be the genesis of Xehanort's dark ambitions.

(as for the Lea and Isa business, if that ever gets revisited we can expect it to be in a flashback in KH3 whenever Isa/Saix does his inevitable face turn because of his friendship with Lea. Gotta hit that unsubtle KH melodrama hard.)

Bolded for truth.

I think Birth By Sleep was fantastic and flowed a hell of a lot better than Dream Drop Distance, but I know people who beat it with a single character and were like "eh, why play the same game twice again?"

This is fucking CRAZY talk but I think that kind of thing is why Team Osaka didn't use a similar system in Dream Drop Distance even though it worked well for them in Re:CoM and BBS. I think a likely goal, especially for KH3, which will go to a broader audience and thus probably needs to be more accessible, is that you just hit "new game" and pick a difficulty level and you're off to the races. Even though I really love the way it worked in BBS, I don't expect that to be the way of things in KH3.

Be that as it may, revisiting worlds thrice was a pain in the ass. As an aside (slight Bravely Default spoiler)

Spoiler

I've about have it with revisiting temples in this game. I love it, but damn. Enough is enough.

Nope. This list of cons pretty much covers it (though, like BBS, the worlds played out differently enough per-character that I don't think the overlap is a big deal). This just results in really terrible pacing, IMO - either you end up deliberately holding one character back so that both characters proceed through the story at roughly the same pace, you don't hold one character back and one of them feels perpetually behind and like a slog to play as, or you try to have Sora and Riku go through the sleeping worlds in totally different order from each other and everything just ends up feeling thoroughly disjointed. None of these are good options, I'm afraid.

I think 3D and BBS would both work with disparate worlds. Like only Ven goes to Neverland, only Aqua with Cinderella, ect.

This one absolutely won't happen - KH is a pretty narrative-heavy game and there's no good way to square this approach with that.



I don't think that the playing-through-the-same-worlds thing is as much of a 'con' as you think, so I don't think that's a "problem" they'll be looking to solve with KH3. But I also suspect that they won't give each character equal playtime like they generally aimed for with BBS/DDD. (I'll talk about that in my next post once I'm done going through all of these)



I don't think this sort of thing would need to be a surprise. However, I also think they'd want all stories to build toward the same big climax rather than separate climaxes as we saw in Re:CoM.


I think something like this sounds pretty cool. However, I think figuring out how things will go depends very heavily on what the purpose is of the Disney worlds this time around.


I like the idea of this but worry that it'd feel too unstructured (especially if you get really used to playing as one character and are then forced into a boss battle using another).


I'll go into this in the post following this.

I think that guessing at how KH3 might work absolutely needs to start with guessing at the purposes of the Disney worlds in the game to follow.

The goals we're seeing for KH3's protagonists seem to be as follows:

-Retrieve Master Aqua from the World of Darkness (a likely Riku joint)
-With Aqua in tow, proceed to Castle Oblivion, restore it to the Land of Departure, and give Ventus's heart-fragment back to him from Sora (which requires, at the very least, Aqua and Sora)

We also need the Keyblade to awake sleeping hearts. I think there's a possiblity that the story might move into legendary keyblades and such (which would be super convenient as the Foretellers all have specialized ones.

This would presumably get us up to the requisite seven Keyblade wielders (Aqua, Ventus, Sora, Riku, Kairi, Mickey, Lea).

Sora is almost certainly one of the thirteen darknesses. Allow me to quote myself for elsewhere on the internet:

Sora becoming overwhelmed by his own darkness near the end of Dream Drop Distance makes all the more sense when you remember the quote prior to Sora fighting the Darkside the first time: “The closer you get to the light, the greater your shadow becomes.” Throughout the series Sora has been relying solely on the light and strengthening it inside him, thus inadvertently strengthening the darkness within him at the same time, but unlike Riku, Sora hasn't been using the darkness, and thus when the Xehanorts stoke the darkness within him, he doesn't know how to control it.

I sincerely doubt that Xehanort would let him go that easy and it's not like he has been manipulated before. Actually, most of the games where Sora is playable have him manipulated by someone or another: CoM, 2, 3D...

Following this, I presume there'd be a push to free Terranort from MX's control over his body, but that doesn't *necessarily* have to happen until the endgame.

None of this, however, creates a justification for the necessary inclusion of Disney worlds in the game. Organization XIII's have-Sora-kill-lots-of-Heartless plot from KH2 doesn't really work anymore, and nor does anything about locking the hearts of worlds.

Master Xehanort mentioned in KHDD that if the seven keyblade wielders refuse to face him, he'll just go after the Princesses of Heart instead. THAT'S a reason for Disney worlds to be included. I could see this being a plot element that crops up in KH3, but given that there are a bunch of properties Disney/Squeenix will want to include that don't necessarily include princesses (let alone the ones who have been described as Princesses of Heart), I don't think it's sufficient to justify everything that'll be happening in the game.

Tangent: There are actually thirteen lights to face the thirteen darknesses. 7 keyblade wielders + 7 Princesses of Heart = 13 people, because Kairi is both.

I'm honestly not sure what'll justify the Disney worlds being a part of the game, so it might end up being a new story element (some sort of new macguffin that Sora needs to collect, perhaps).

I think it will be looking for that keyblade.

However, here's a way I think the game could control pacing fairly well while still having a number of playable stories: something like the chapter system from some of the Suikoden games, or like we saw in Resident Evil 6.

Think of it this way: the game starts off with a tutorial chapter in which you play as Kairi (this is basically a guarantee, I think).

Following this, you can choose to play Riku Chapter 1 or Sora Chapter 1. (Let's just assume that it'll start off with Sora/Donald/Goofy and Riku/Kairi/Lea, with Mickey playing a playable-if-you-die-in-certain-boss-battles role similar to what he had in KH2).

Then assume that there are certain chapter requirements that must be completed in order to unlock subsequent ones (to be sure that all parts of the story keep pace with the others). But you could play through the chapters like Sora/Riku/Sora/Riku/Sora/Riku or Sora/Sora/Sora/Riku/Riku/Riku.

I think there are certain things that this approach would require, one of them being a way to share certain upgrades among your entire party (Bonus Level could handle this pretty well, I think, as could something akin to Birth By Sleep's pleasantly simple passive-ability system).

It would also require some interesting changes in the climactic endgame chapter (for example, how do you handle the sheer number of protagonists that need to be there for the climax?) but I feel like it would end up being a better-paced cross between Birth By Sleep and Dream Drop Distance that would never allow the story to go off the rails.

That's sorta close to another suggestion I got:

switch hitting a la Sonic Adventure 2 suggested by BlooWren

Like, everyone's travelling around separately, you play a section with Sora and then move on to another portion of story with Riku and then another with Kairi or Aqua or Lea or even Saix. Whatever. Just linear story, like a playable movie moving between scenes/sections of character gameplay. Maybe with items remaining constant but weapons varying by character. It's simple, and plays like a movie, and allows everyone to come together for the finale where you can choose a certain character or just play with Sora. When I say Sora, you'd then have Donald and Goofy backing him up; if it's Riku, then Mickey or Kairi; if Aqua, then other characters she/they meet. Simple!

As for the ending, I expect something along the lines of 3D's Sora vs Xemnas and Riku vs Ansem boss splits. I anticipate Lea vs Isa, Aqua vs Braig, Sora vs MX, and well... we'll see who else shows up. I hope to god Larxene comes back. I really do.

 

[Caladrius]

Thank you for these links. Birth By Sleep intrigued me the most along with Kingdom Hearts 2. I might give these games a shot. I don't want to get it on PSP and PlayStation 2. So when is this Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix coming out?

How did this series come into existent? It uses Disney characters. Did Disney approach Square Enix or Square Enix approached Disney?

Also I heard that Final Fantasy XV gameplay is similar to Kingdom Hearts. I have seen the trailers. It does indeed look similar. I also heard XV will have shooting combat as well. So it will probably be a hybrid of "hack 'n' slash" and shooting.

No problem.

2.5 is supposed to come out sometime this year, we've heard distressingly little about it though. I would recommend playing BBS over 2 if you're mainly concerned about difficulty. I think 2 has overall better bosses and pacing, but BBS has more difficult regular combat and more diverse combat options.

The series apparently came about due to a chance meeting between Disney and Square execs, if I heard right. FF 15 and Kingdom Hearts 3 are sister projects, and share both their composer and director (in fact FF15 had been holding up production of KH3 until they could get another team to do the grunt work)

As I've said several times now, that laughable difficulty really soured me on KH2, so I'm very interested in Critical Mode and other tweaks to see how much it can improve the game. Even the slight difficulty bump for Proud Mode in KH1 I appreciated.

Critical mode is a substantial improvement in terms of difficulty. I'm not entirely sure if it was enough of one to greatly challenge returning players, but a majority of bosses actually pose a threat, and enemies punish your mistakes hard (fucking lance soldiers and devastators), especially since they moved second chance to level 49 at the earliest.

 

[Malyse]

The series apparently came about due to a chance meeting between Disney and Square execs, if I heard right.

Shinji Hashimoto, a Square game producer, had been discussing the possibility of creating an open world game like Super Mario 64, with Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy. The company decided to get started on its own project but the two lamented the fact that one of the reasons the Mario game had been so successful is that the Italian plumber was already a well-established character. One or both of the men remarked that perhaps only Disney had a stable of intellectual property that was as well-known worldwide as Nintendo’s.

As fate would have it, one day Hashimoto found himself standing in an elevator next to a top executive from Disney. Square and Disney had at one time worked in the same office building in Japan. The random meeting gave Hashimoto the opportunity he needed to present Square’s idea directly to Disney. Development began in February 2000 with Hashimoto serving as producer and Tetsuya Nomura, the lead character designer from Final Fantasy VII as director.

At first, the game was designed to have a simple story aimed at Disney’s target audience: young children. But then the Godfather of Final Fantasy stepped in. Sakaguchi told Nomura that he felt the game would be a failure if the story did not aspire to be just as great as one of Square’s Final Fantasy titles. Nomura then set out to further develop the story. The name Kingdom Hearts was originally inspired by Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park, which back then had just recently opened in Florida. As Nomura further developed the story around the theme of the characters’ hearts, the developer decided to merge the two names together to create Kingdom Hearts.

Square was given unprecedented access to the Disney vault and while the company wasn’t given too many restrictions, the developer still tried to ensure that everything in each of the Disney worlds felt like it fit with the already established guidelines for those worlds created by the House of Mouse.

No one was sure what the initial reception to the game would be, so Nomura put in a hidden video at the end of the first game that hinted at a possible sequel just to see what the reaction would be. This is now a tradition that has been used multiple times throughout the history of the franchise to tease fans about upcoming games.

#themoreyouknow

 

[badcrumble]

Regarding the "keyblade to wake sleeping hearts" - I didn't think that that ability was linked to a keyblade, but was rather the "new power" that Master Yen Sid said Riku/Sora would attack after waking all of the hearts of sleeping worlds.

 

[Napalm_Frank]

As I've said several times now, that laughable difficulty really soured me on KH2, so I'm very interested in Critical Mode and other tweaks to see how much it can improve the game. Even the slight difficulty bump for Proud Mode in KH1 I appreciated.

Critical isn't a huge difficulty bump over proud if you are looking for that other than the fact that you get lil less exp and less hp, especially when critical rewards you with bonus abilities. Lvl 1 is where it's at. And to be honest KH2 lvl 1 is the only one that makes sense really. BBS and KH1 ones don't really work nearly as well. Can't say about DDD tho. I won't be going for lvl 1 challenge right away with 2.5, I'll enjoy normal Critical mode.

Tho the optional Org bosses scattered in the story can kick your ass in critical even if you ain't lvl 1. I think I remember having a lot of trouble with Larxene for example when I first tried to fight her as soon as I got to Port Royal.

 

[R10Neymarfan]

None of this, however, creates a justification for the necessary inclusion of Disney worlds in the game. Organization XIII's have-Sora-kill-lots-of-Heartless plot from KH2 doesn't really work anymore, and nor does anything about locking the hearts of worlds.

Master Xehanort mentioned in KHDD that if the seven keyblade wielders refuse to face him, he'll just go after the Princesses of Heart instead. THAT'S a reason for Disney worlds to be included. I could see this being a plot element that crops up in KH3, but given that there are a bunch of properties Disney/Squeenix will want to include that don't necessarily include princesses (let alone the ones who have been described as Princesses of Heart), I don't think it's sufficient to justify everything that'll be happening in the game.

I'm honestly not sure what'll justify the Disney worlds being a part of the game, so it might end up being a new story element (some sort of new macguffin that Sora needs to collect, perhaps).

It would also require some interesting changes in the climactic endgame chapter (for example, how do you handle the sheer number of protagonists that need to be there for the climax?) but I feel like it would end up being a better-paced cross between Birth By Sleep and Dream Drop Distance that would never allow the story to go off the rails.

Obviously there will be another Keyblade war by how things are pacing through the story. Perhaps Sora and friends go to the same worlds old an dnew to recruit an army? Because I doubt MX will just bring his 13 darknesses. He will probably bring with him revived villians, heartless, nobodies, unversed, and possibly nightmares from the realm of sleep.

This prompts Sora to bring his Disney allies and FF friends to prepare for the final clash in Keyblade graveyard. Obviously the individual world stories will have no connection to the main till the end (the recruitment phase) so everything else within that world could be made up or just once again follow the movie plot.