n regards to boss fights, he said, "We felt that it was enough. When you're playing the game, you don't want boss fights all of the time, right?

You all don't speak for me.

He was surprised people were disappointed over the lack of FF characters?

Again the characters that needed to be saved dont appear until after all the Disney worlds are completed. The FF cast wouldnt have interfered with the main story in the slightest

Well I’m glad to hear that Yasue is aware of the criticisms being leveled at the game specifically with the lack of post game content. Heres to hoping that they actually add some meatier optional boss battles or something in the way of post game because battle portals don’t really do it for me.

I feel like we should’ve gotten multiple sections of the 10K Heartless battle. One segment where your party is SDG + Riku and Mickey, one segment where your party is SDG + Aqua and Ven, a segment with Kairi and Lea, and then maybe one last segment with just SDG. With each group having their own limit attacks Sora can perform with them.

I didn’t mind the glut of endgame boss fights towards the end, but I can certainly understand why some would. The second time I played through it, I actually was exhausted by the time I got to the Chief Xehanort’s. I would’ve added one more fight where you play as Lingering Will against Terra Xehanort, but you get the II FM+ moves like the whip and the cannon.

This whole "we made it easier to target an audience" thing stills burns my brownies. It's like they forgot what Easy Mode is for.

When you're playing the game, you don't want boss fights all of the time, right?

Yes, actually.

It's amazing how detached from reality these guys can be. lol

I remember there was a Nomura interview where he thought since there's so many FF crossover games nowadays, that they weren't necessary for KH anymore. Completely ignoring the main appeal of KH is it being a Disney/FF crossover.

I'm perfectly fine with there being no new FF characters appearing in KH3, but you can't pretend that the Restoration Committee, the FF characters relevant to the main story, don't exist.

I mean I don't think this isn't so much a detachment from reality as it is fans overstating the importance of an element that they never meant to be as important as many treat it. The FF characters are cameos, they've always been cameos and stated to be such since the very first game (the game is marketed as a Disney Square crossover with FF cameos, it's the fanbase and unofficial sites that liked to spread and say it's a Disney x FF crossover drastically overplaying the FF presence). It was flat out told to us that it was a way to draw in new fans when KH was a fledgeling series without an established core base to draw upon, and a way to fill in KH's original worlds because Nomura felt that Disney characters wouldn't really fit there doing the kinds of roles we see them doing. But they are a crutch the series doesn't need to lean on anymore and hasn't been since KH2. Which was the last game before we had a large cast of good guy characters to takeover and carry the series themselves.

Which doesn't mean you can't like them or enjoy them, but really of all the things people complain about for KH3 this always came off to me more as a bit...petty than a legit complaint. Like you hear time and time again people complaining about how KH does too much fanservice but then the same people will turn around and complain on the lack of FF characters who are ONLY fanservice at this point and nothing else. Because if there was a role they could do it would be better filled by the many numerous original characters that should be getting screen time.

I will always enjoy seeing the FF characters for fun, but if they aren't there I just fail to see how anything is really lost either. It's like the KH games are already full fledge cakes of varying size and quality, and stuff like Square cameos are sprinkles. Nice to have but if you lack them you still have a full cake to eat. So yeah I can understand why Yasue would be surprised, it's a lot of silly huff over a relatively minor element.

I get that they wanted to make this easy for new fans...but kids literally play Fortnite all day. THEY GOOD, YASUE. THEY GOOD.

Also that is what BEGINNER MODE IS FOR. Proud should have been kicking our asses at least a little bit. Whenever I DID die, it was because of dumb reasons and not because I was having a hard time playing the game.

Also the lack of being aware that people wanted FF characters...Like I swear this is something that was always brought up by fans even during the BBS/Days/coded days. They were wondering where the FF characters were and Nomura was like "oh we didn't want to have too many and overwhelm the story" and everybody said "NO PLEASE SHOW THEM"

Many of us don't care how many FF crossover projects they have going on. That isn't us getting to see Donald talk to Cloud Strife or Merlin arguing with Cid. That isn't resolving the plot of Radiant Garden. What do Leon and the Restoration guys feel about THE VERY PEOPLE WHO LED THEIR WORLD TO RUIN COMING BACK AND TAKING OVER THE CASTLE LIKE NOTHING. There are narrative reasons why we wanted to see them again.

And their BS answer about it interfering with the story. NO. We don't even deal with the main cast until the LAST FOUR HOURS.

I respect and admire the entire KH team. Yasue is my favorite director at SE.

I just really wish they had taken the time to really think about this stuff before just moving ahead and assuming these things. I get that they had issues with the game and I know a lot of what he is saying could very well be PR talk, but still.

ugh.

Look, I'd agree with you but it isn't like the Restoration Committee wasn't involved in the main plot in the last numbered games. They were very much major supporting characters to Sora's journey. It is absolutely not fan service wanting to see their reactions to the former leader of their world and his apprentices who helped ruin the world return and take over the castle like nothing happened.

Edit: Also, it's not like the game doesn't reference Seifer and his friends in Twilight Town. There is a line of dialogue that mentions them They absolutely could have appeared as NPCs. There was absolutely no reason for any FF erasure in this game.

It doesn't matter if they were only around as cameos. They were still a part of the experience in the past.

Except that the Restoration Committee isn't fan service. They are part of the main story and not acknowledging them screws things up. They live in and run Radiant Garden. You can't just have Ansem the Wise and his Apprentices walking about and going back to their old jobs without Leon and crew's knowledge. We should have seen them dealing and working with the apprentices. We should have at the very least had Sora ask how Leon and the commitee are doing.

To ignore them is no different from ignoring anything else in the main story, and there was plenty of room to have them in.

EDIT: This is what I meant by "detached from reality". They have no flipping clue the value FF brings to KH nor the narrative importance some FF characters have. They somehow believe because there's Dissidia and WoFF and those other FF crossover titles out there now that KH fans would no longer want or care for FF in KH. Then they claim there was too much going on in the story to include them when that couldn't be farther from the truth.

Preach!

Yeah no, I totally embrace the fact that they're detached from reality, and I'm not even talking just about the FF characters.
Multiple times Yasue talks like Nomura does, as in that the way they did things was the only possible one.

"I mean who'd want to fight multiple bosses"
"Look, it's not like there was enough time to flesh out this main instance between a Classic Kingdom minigame and the other"
"I think we can all agree that putting Leon and a Radiant Garden gameplay segment in those 30 hours of nothingness would've been impossible now that we made Terra and Roxas appear at the very end of the game with their stunning 3-4 lines of dialogue total"

Yasue says they read feedback and... I guess I believe him, it seems like the biggest complaints reached their ears (although I do believe they kinda saw those ones coming even when they were working on the game), it's the way he answers that leaves me perplexed.
Much like when I read Nomura speaking it feels like once they commit to their way they consider the issue automatically solved in the best possible way and don't come back on it. And I don't want to be a dipshit and tell professionals how to do their job, but... in a little less than two months I've seen randos and fanartists on Twitter coming up with more ways to deal with this or that story/gameplay issue. Maybe not all of them were necessarily *better* or easily doable, but... they were alternatives routes, made up in a few weeks. None of it came up in 5 years of development?
Also Yasue believes KH III focuses heavily on Roxas and the TAV reunion and that's a... funny way of seeing it.

I'm pretty neutral on the adding the train bit in the 10k heartless fight. I don't really mind it either way, I understand Yasue's thought process in putting it, and I kind of agree with the concept.

Call me crazy (and maybe), but I'm starting to think what we all truly needed was another KH title before KH III. Meaning, we needed *this* KH III to be simply another title and not the Dark Seeker Saga finale.
I start to sense that a lot of the decisions they made were somewhat of... let's say "whims"? That Nomura, or Yasue, or someone else in the team wanted to fulfill.
They wanted to focus on big Pixar worlds, they wanted to put LC games, they wanted to play around with this or that mechanic, they wanted to appeal to a broader audience.
They should've done that, getting even more accustomed and confident to the newer console systems, getting all their personal peeves out of the way, and THEN worked on KH III. Oh, and of course they could've used this in-between game to achieve what DDD failed to do, aka lessening KH III's narrative burden by establishing facts and characters (like Kairi and Lea training) so that KH III could've started on a more solid ground.
Mr. Yasue, apologies if this sounds rude, but I'm not really thrilled at hearing that the finale I was waiting for emotionally speaking half my lifespan got dumbed down so that your kids could've had a stab at it. As others have stated, they are called difficulty settings for this very reason.

Sora: WE GOTTA FIND ROXAS
Also Sora: Let me spend 10 hours collecting crabs

I’m joking because I really did enjoy collecting the crabs lol but finding Roxas was a plot point for maybe an hour of the story and then it just disappears until Roxas appears at the end of the game and the TAV stuff really doesn’t come into play in any meaningful manner at all until the end. We get a hint every now and then by Sora mentioning needing to find Terra or like one off things like that...but the narrative they think they delivered and the narrative we actually got are not the same.

EDIT: I sound salty, and I probably am. I’m surrounded by drunk cops and have a 3am work shift on a forced work weekend so I’m living in salt. I have also spent two months both really happy about KH3 and also just truly and utterly disappointed to the point of depression so I have a lot of words.

When asked if the 1,000 Heartless battle was easier to do this time around, thanks to the better tech, Yasue said it wasn't but let me in on a little secret. "We changed a bit at the end. The final moment when we put the master up, we didn't have the train. I've never said this before. It came at a very late date, so that was added. I wanted it added because I wanted something new for a Kingdom Hearts III battle. The train, you could only use it for the rock titan in the Hercules stage, and I thought it would be a nice conclusion if you could use it at the last moment."

Completely disagree. It was ok against Rock Titan, but in the 1,000 Heartless/Nobody/Unversed battle it felt out of place and affected the tension. Same thing can happen in Anti-Aqua fight if we use Pirate Ship.

It's good they are aware of fans disappointment about the lack of Final Fantasy characters. That's why it's important for us to be critical and not blind fanboys who praise and accept everything. They need to know where they screw up, so they can improve next time. We are their consumers.

I'm surprised nobody still call them out about what they did to Twilight Town.

For one thing, Tai Yasue admits that the team is reading Q&As, but on the other hand, he's surprised that FF characters are being missed a lot? I feel like they want to fey the ignorance card. I honestly have a feeling we won't be seeing more of a solid presence of the FF franchise in KH with games to come.

I mean it's pretty easy to come up with ideas when you don't have to grapple with the realities of game development such as budget, resources, time constraints, memory constraints, etc etc Like. there are a thousand reasons why something happens the way it does.


This thread is very interesting to me. Such fire. And like, the total opposite to how I felt myself and I'm trying to pinpoint exactly why that was. I guess it was just my expectations maybe? Idk. Reality will never be able to live up to endless potential I suppose.

It's good they are aware of fans disappointment about the lack of Final Fantasy characters. That's why it's important for us to be critical and not blind fanboys who praise and accept everything. They need to know where they screw up, so they can improve next time. We are their consumers.

You do know there's a downside to that right? While blindly praising the game so much that people don't wanna hear criticism of it is one issue (KH2 fans ESPECIALLY from my experience) the opposite is just as true about people being too cynical and jaded with their expectations that no matter what the game developers do, those people will NEVER be pleased! They fix one thing, they bitch, they add another thing, they bitch, they add something else for free, they STILL bitch! Its like the courage the cowardly dog meme when taking care of a young Muriel in one episode on how she wanted her mac and cheese to be done, she kept making ridiculous demands for it and even when AFTER doing all that, she dumps the food on him saying "I hate mac and cheese!" Or in short, the Sonic fandom as a whole.

And already there are fans who play these games that don't even know what they want! When KH3 had its world focused on the main story, people complain its too much disney, and when they had other people to help with the music who also worked on other titles like Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, then they say the game is too final fantasy! They want more open worlds, then they say its too big, then when they make em more linear, they say its too small. These days its getting harder to tell which is actual criticism or people being spoiled by their own hype and expectations that if a game doesn't meet their tiniest of demands, they'll destroy it!

You're right about them needing to take in what the community wants, but it is still out of our jurisdiction about what goes on behind the scenes and why things happen. I get it, people want FF characters in the game because they've been there since the first. But how much of that need now is about nostalgia and franchise recognition in a series that's already getting too big? I know the same can be said with the Disney characters but Disney is the literal heart (no pun intended) of the series. The FF characters were installed to help sell the series to begin with to jrpg fans.

Not to mention too that even if they did find a way to work em in to KH3, how would they contribute? I'm not asking in an attempt to straw man the question, I'm just curious cause all I'm getting is people want FF characters for the nostalgia when you really look at it, you could replace the FF characters and arguably the WewY characters with original ones and nothing would change at all. The FF characters worked the best in KH1 given its premise but aside from Auron in KH2, they didn't really do much just aside being there for players to recognize. But I'm going on a tangent.

And to repeat so there is no misunderstanding, it is right to criticize something that is wrong, but due to everybody having their own preferences to what they think works and doesn't, people who blindly praise something or people cynically bash everything without a single ounce of praise, the sad truth is that not everyone's expectations are gonna be met.

I posted a reply to someone else already but you're not the only one. I really enjoyed KH3 but I know its not perfect, honestly KH3 vanilla had the same issues that KH2 vanilla had but they don't want any criticisms towards that game because they loved the combat mechanics of it and nothing else. There are a lot of things that are out of our control, at least they'd be taking the time to address some of the issues that people has with the game, but they won't be able to do EVERYTHING. Honestly the major disadvantage that KH3 has compared to the other games is that its been exposed so much through social media hyping it up, and considering how much social media has changed in time people are becoming a lot more cynical and jaded that they're quicker to destroy than be constructive. And even when some are being constructive, some of their expectations could just be set from the nostalgia of the past games. Either way, until all of the DLC for the game is out, we gotta sit through a lot more months of this.

My needs are simple for DLC. Give me a couple of new super bosses, maybe tone down attractions a little, expand the secret ending like KH2FM did, and add some new keyblades (Let Sora have Oathkeeper and Oblivion back darn it.) Though the idea that both Nomura AND Yasue were this surprised by the reaction of the fans to the non inclusion of FF characters baffles me.

Yes, in CoM, when we're shown the people closest to Sora in his heart, the FF characters are there, not the Disney characters. The Traverse Town crew was his pseudo-family in KH1, and they were the base in KH2, too.

I just have to wonder what goes on in these people's heads when they talk about how they want the game to be easier for new fans. Well, what even is the point of the different "modes" of difficulty at this point, if you think every mode has to cater to the people who want it easy? What's worse are hearing stupid statements from fans about "having high expectations." As if wanting things that have always been in this series like harder modes of difficulty and FF cameos are "high expectations that can't possibly be lived up to." GMAFB with that steaming hot garbage.

I'd like to know what Yasue/Nomura think they mean when they say this. It's like the game they were making in their minds, the game they actually made, and the game fans deserved must be rendered into three entirely separate constructs in order to make sense of what happened, and outside of PR I find it difficult to believe anyone at SE sees any real truth in this. The "main storyline" of Kingdom Hearts doesn't exist without the involvement of Leon et al in Traverse Town followed by Leon et al in Hollow Bastion. They're more crucial than most of the Disney worlds in the games in which they appear. In the case of one such Disney world, it only appears because they are in the game. Then again, Yasue mentions he started work on the series with BBS, so maybe that's why he can say this with a straight face.

Meanwhile, Nomura has approx. 500,000 hours of nothing happening in KH3 and he's fashioning himself a Math Lady over how to involve the FF gang. Right. Just taking this at face value, it's not as though KH3 did a stellar job of handling what "main storyline" it did manage to offload in between red herrings and sequel baiting, and it somehow still managed to discard significant material like Kairi and Lea's shared world of origin, and the fact that the original PoH all formed meaningful bonds with main protagonists over the course of the series-- only to be shoved off as unceremoniously as the FF gang.

Gee, I sure am glad they took the time to focus KH3 on what really matters:
[spoiler][/spoiler]

I’m going to address the TWEWY thing first before getting back to your question: Why would Nomura bother making Shibuya, specifically the TWEWY Shibuya, a major setting in a future KH project if he was not trying to build the importance of it and those characters up in some manner? You can’t go around saying that if you remove those characters, the experience is the same because Nomura himself created the expectation for them. He didn’t have to, but he did. That’s the kind of stuff I hate reading because it completely undermines what was actually developed to create some narrative that fans are asking for too much.

No, people are literally asking for something that was intentionally placed in the series. They don’t want to set those expectations? They should have never included it in the first place. They did, so they need to understand that people will ask for these things BECAUSE of their own actions, not because of our expectations alone.

Now, back to your question: That requires pointing out that Radient Garden in general needed to be a major location in KH3 rather than a cutscene-only world. Radiant Garden is where the Organization began, it’s where a good number of the supporting cast of KH3 originate from, it is also known as the former capitol of light in the Realm of Light, and is where the Door to Darkness lied.

All of this in mind, these concepts should have come back into play in KH3 as a way to retrace Xehanort’s steps in order to try and understand his plan. The big thing KH3 was missing was having the heroes attempt to understand just what the hell was trying to do first hand rather than standing around listening to Yen Sid monologue about his plans. By having Yen Sid explain everything, it completely undermines the impact this should have on both the main cast and the player themself because there is no active attempt at seeking out answers over what the main antagonist is doing. Instead Sora and his friends go on a wild goose chase for absolutely no reason. Why not go to RG to see if there were answers about understanding the Power of Waking...y’know, in the world where Sora faced one of his most important battles when he first began his journey and committed his first act of self-sacrifice for a person he cares about? How about being a place where we could get even a HINT of Xehanort’s true plan to rid the worlds of all beings and of Darkness to make the worlds pure Light?

There is no attempt at having Lea confront his past in order to better guide him in his choices in the future. A place where he was changed into a Nobody and lost his best friend(s) (cuz X/Skuld(?) is a thing now) by Xehanort himself should have major importance to the story. A world where Kairi originated from should have had importance. The world where Mickey and Riku visit to seek out some answers to their own questions should have been given more screen time and have been playable.

And this is where the FF crew would come into play. They run Radiant Garden. They should be the ones delivering information to the main cast, or at least guiding them to where that information is. They should have been trying to confront the apprentices and come to a temporary truce in order to aid Sora and his friends. We should have gotten some more of that stupid “the girl” teasing as well to make it feel less out of the clear blue.

So, literally, they needed to play the same role they served in past numbered KH games because that was always the role that was established for them. The overal story is weaker by having Sora meander about in various Disney worlds and could have been tightened by giving him a hub he could return to whenever he hit a wall in looking for answers. This could have been the perfect place to tie up all of the little connections that were left hanging for no good reason.

I went into KH3 with maybe a handful of expectations, had those expectations met, and still came out underwhelmed on a load of things I didn’t even care about prior to playing the game, so I don’t know what the point of bringing people expectations up has to do with their overall experience with the game. People can go into something without any set expectations and come out of it feeling satisfied or unsatisfied.

I didn’t go into KH3 with the expectation the game would be difficult but I certainly came out wishing it had been.

I understand and overall agree with that, that's why I wanted to say I don't just want to play the part of a lazy bum on the couch yelling at people that they could do better.
The problem is... when it comes down to KH III and some specific issues they also could've done better, and sometimes alternative solutions didn't require drastic changes in the course of events or budget increases.

I wouldn't generally say "you should've just done better" out of the blue to a professional, but I'll kinda think it when I see the Kairi treatment or the fact that you've boasted the 4 allies at the same time mechanic throughout the game ands then you don't use it to give me a fight with multiple Guardians of Light.
So it's not that as a general rule people in the fandom are just better at coming up with ideas, of course, but to some extent professionals should see some issues coming and deal with them.

And as others suspect, I too believe they kinda did see some issues coming but decided to play a "there wasn't enough time" card.
I mean, it's basically Nomura's new catchphrase in the interviews.
But when you cut a corner on a paper, you've just made two.
(I think. It was a moral lesson in an old American Dragon episode)



Yes, exactly. By all means, Roxas is indeed mentioned and kinda brought up over the course of the story (I really like the BH6 moment on the bridge), but it's really discontinuous. Sora has the very big and apt emotional moment about Roxas with Ansem and Xemnas, then it's back to Remy and cooking for levity, which is fine in a way, then it's onto another world like nothing happened. Terra's even worse.
It might've even been done in such a way because Nomura realized they would only appear in the final beats of the game, but... they believe they did a fine job in covering that, we kinda don't.



I hear you. I feel bad that I always come off as extremely angry or salty in discussions, I have forcefully imposed on myself not to comment too much on KH III during the first days when I was trying to sort out all the feelings I had, but then everything just piles up and comes out all at once.
It's just that this game hits me on many levels and I have a lot to say so it's hard to keep the frustration at bay.



I can't really act like I needed FF characters badly, not for me at least. But I also can't act like all of this isn't a solid argument and shows the uncertainty in how many new themes got handled in favor of old ones.

It seriously bummed me when I realized that Kairi never properly returned to RG, despite it being the only sensible thing to do for the saga finale.
This is why I said we perhaps needed one more game: Yasue and even Nomura really wanted to focus on Disney worlds and how could they play out on ps4/xbox, and I'm fine with it and giving original worlds the bench, but KH III was literally the worst title to do such a thing. If you made all the Disney worlds experimentation you wanted in another title and put Kairi in training zone then, KH III could've handled all the important bits and maybe even having Kairi coming back to her Grandma's house ("grave" might've been a tad too sad) or something.

"Retracing Xehanort's steps" could've been a much more fleshed out and immersive portion than just Riku and Mickey realizing Terra is being held captive (something fans knew since 2011 so it wasn't exactly a thrilling discovery either), and even Sora getting Master's Defender could've been better by having a lenghty Destiny Islands segment. I mean, it's the birthplace of Xehanort as well as Sora and Riku, played a part inKH1, BbS and 0.2 and whatever confused lore there is about the Kingdom Keys happened there as well. How fitting would've been to go full Half-blood Prince and just focusing on figuring out Xehanort.

And I'm certainly never gonna say that replacing Leon and the gang with lenghty Ienzo exposition was a good idea.
I'm sorry, but Ienzo is such a boring character, propelled in the fandom by the Blank Points and KH II FM moments that seemed to imply he was going to be such a pivotal character in the final clash (I SO knew that wasn't going to be a thing in the end).
No offense to Corazza, but hearing Ienzo talking on and on wasn't exactly what made me excited about KH III.
I mean, whatever problems I might've had with FF cameos in KH was rarely about Leon and the others, and more about the most "pointless" ones like Vivi. I didn't cry because street punk Seifer wasn't in KH III.
But the Restoration Commitee was definitely important to drive at least the "big games trilogy" home. They were the ones who first introduced the concepts of Ansem, Keyblade and Heartless in KH1. They're part of the family, I'll never deny that.
And if I did it in the past... I'll admit I was being too stubborn.

Also yes, as pointed out the reason why we didn't have all of this, the "replacement" provided by Disney worlds, it's so messy that it only adds on the frustration.
Building basically three quarters of the game over a power of waking never heard before DDD was a daring move by itself, but then it only gets worse.
When you sit and think for even a few seconds, you realize there is nothing that ties the power of waking to the Disney worlds. Nothing at all. It's a power Sora had but then lost, and it was a power gained by interacting with seven sleeping keyholes in the realm of dreams. No reason whatsoever to go to Disney worlds. This is why all the times the power od waking is brought the scene just never feels right.
"Sora, what about the power of waking, did you get it back yet?"
"No."
"Oh..."

And that's... it. No one says anything else, because there's nothing else to be said. What SDG are doing throughout the game is useless in terms of their long-term goal and they all ignore it because pointing that out loud would make it blatantly obvious how un-thought this whole plan was.
Of course you can say that going through the worlds had other purposes, like recovering Sora's power and keeping an eye on the Princesses, but that's going from the pan into the oven since those themes are also poorly handled. The Norts don't really do anything with the Princesses because they're waiting on the Guardians of Light. So you just have this stalemate where the villains can't really do any villainous act since they need to preserve both factions of good characters for their own goal. And this is why they're hardly anything more than an annoyance in Disney worlds.
And Sora's lost powers saga begins and ends with Olympus.
Lastly, surprising absolutely no one, the power was in us the entire time and we just needed to point the Keyblade in front of us and hope really hard, much like every other Keyblade technique. And it was such an obvious and inevitable outcome that if that was the road they chose then they should've made a believable and engaging story with double the effort to make it all worth it.

All of this is why whenever they say that there wasn't enough time to do this or that and that it was so because of Disney worlds salt is bound to come. Their whole premise for focusing on some stuff in spite of other things was weak from the storyboard meeting to its execution.

Spot on about this all "expectations" debate too. KH III managed to perform much better than expected in the areas I was most concerned about, and then failed and let me down where I didn't even think it was possible.
Okay, I'll admit Kairi is a case of "fool me twice, shame on me".
But, like... I didn't think they would do friggin' Riku like they did. Or having Terra never interact with either him or Xehanort. I never thought FF characters wouldn't be in the game at all.
Those were not my expectations, or rather my expectations in the sense that I was building up hype specifically for those things.

Of course if it let me down it means some expectations weren't met, but if believing Terra would at least confront his archnemesis that ruined his life or Riku, an already popular and well established character doing more was setting the bar too high, then... eh.

Sometimes it felt like they wanted this game to be a movie and not an actual game.

What? Roxas (and Naminé) is an important plot point that is referenced during the entire game, from start to finish. It's what bring different people together (Ienzo, Ansem, HPO, Vexen...) because they all share the same goal and it definitely doesn't happen for maybe an hour.

How about being a place where we could get even a HINT of Xehanort’s true plan to rid the worlds of all beings and of Darkness to make the worlds pure Light?

That wasn't his plan. He wanted to bring the world(s) to a blank state. No light and no darkness, tabula rasa.

Basically. It's a problem with narrative consistency.

Not showing the FF characters, who are not even just a part of the Radiant Garden world, but they legit make up the committee that makes it function—this is like going to Olympus Coliseum but not seeing, or even mentioning the whereabouts, of the main cast from that world. The KH team's decision to do this must've made some sense from whatever angle they went about it, but it definitely doesn't from a narrative standpoint.

If that’s what you feel. Referencing it over the story doesn’t mean it was integrated well or a major focus of the story. We spend a lot of time focusing on the Disney stories and the main plot comes in between those stories, and only in small brief moments. And in those moments, they are almost expository dialogue to tell Sora about something rather than us seeing anything.

If that worked for you, great.

That wasn't his plan. He wanted to bring the world(s) to a blank state. No light and no darkness, tabula rasa.

He literally says at the end of KH3 he wanted to make the world “pure and bright”. That’s not a tabula rasa.

His plan was to reset the World to the beginning, where it was just KH's light and then from there essentially be a controlling force of the people that would emerge so that light and dark existed in balance and that rampant darkness wouldn't cover the world again.

Honestly the whole Shibuya thing pisses me off more than the exclusion of FF in this game lol. It literally makes no freaking sense, like at the very least if his heart was so set on Shibuya he should have renamed the 109 building again. Unless he thought it was a cute reference or something idk.

I've always had an issue with KH not actually using its crossover nature as well as it could, and I think this game did Disney mostly how I would prefer to see them in the future. Maybe even more integrated into the overall narrative. But at least Disney and KH characters actually interacted and the Disney ones had some of the best impact on what was happening. But now they seem to have lost interest in Square properties entirely and to just fill that void with more and more KH original characters. Which, I guess if Nomura really has all these ideas for KH characters then sure? But I guess we have to see if even half of them have fulfilling arcs or points to them.
But at the moment I just can't see how Yozora and MoM being around suddenly means Neku and company can't be around either, if that's even what Nomura is thinking at the moment.



I guess this really does encompass my general feelings of criticism to the game, though I do think I wasn't hit as hard by it. Or rather, I did come out focusing on the positives over the negatives. I dunno quite why. I do think I had "low" expectations like Audo was saying as well. Cuz I honestly do feel generally content with the game at the moment.

Though I am anticipating improvements from the DLC. In regards to difficulty and some added information more than anything. I am looking forward to more post-game content but honestly, it took me 90 hours to actually find all the freaking Lucky Emblems and Chests on my own lol. If I had used a guide, then maybe I would feel differently lol.

So am I right in feeling that putting so much focus on the Disney worlds was a bit of a bad idea?

It's not about what worked for me, it's about what objectively happens in the game. Roxas' story (which is deeply intertwined with Naminé's and Xion's) is a costant plot point because it's connected to several other characters. At the start of the game, the focus is on Sora's POV as he helps HPO gain access to data in Twilight Town. Then, Sora is off doing what he has to do. The next step is to get a replica for Roxas (and the others) and that's when the shift goes from Sora's POV to other people's POV: Vexen, Demyx, Ienzo and Ansem (and HPO again). They all work together (directly and indirectly) to bring people back, at different times of the game. And we do see things: Sora and HPO gain access to data on screen, Vexen and Demyx plot against the Organization on screen, Demyx hands over Roxas' replica on screen, Roxas' heart leaves Sora's body on screen.
And again, it's not about arguing whether it was done right or wrong, it's about stating that no, it wasn't a plot point for an hour then left up in the air until the end.

He literally says at the end of KH3 he wanted to make the world “pure and bright”. That’s not a tabula rasa.

His full quote is "An empty World, full and bright" which is a glaring mistranslation because it doesn't make sense. How can a world be empty and at the same time bright (=full of light)? He wants to reset the World so that it can finally achieve a balance between Light and Darkness this time, under his guide. He wants a blank world, as stated in the japanese version.

I have mostly a positive impression of KH3. The lack of Radiant Garden and the FF characters there are the only thing I'd say I'm really bitter about. Although I wish KH3 had a coliseum and a critical mode, the game's not as ridiculously easy as KH2 was, imo. I'll have no access to the bandaid DLC content, unless they release it in physical form as a Final Mix someday, so.... This is pretty much what KH3 will always be for me.

To me the Disney worlds are the best thing about the game and the first time since KH1 that I felt like Disney was actually done well. Felt the closest to actually hit the potential of what these worlds can do and be like. They're the highlight. So I don't think it was a mistake for them to put the energy there. The vast majority of the game is always Disney worlds so putting a lot of attention and care there is a good decision to make, imo.

Idk. I don't really want to argue with anyone about how they feel about the game. So much of this is subjective and things that can be dealbreakers for some are barely a passing thought to others, but since the trend in this thread (and in forums/discussions in general among fans) trend toward hating the game... Idk, I guess I'll just offer my counterstance which is that I loved it? I'm not sure why I had such a diametrically opposed reaction to the game as others but I did. This was honestly like the first KH game that I found to be genuinely fun? Like, i've enjoyed every game of course, but KH3 was capital-f Fun for me. I had a constant smile on my face the entire time. I laughed out loud more in this one game than in the entire series combined (it's like the first time KH is actually funny??). There was so many things that made me clutch my heart, that moved me or stirred me, from little details and things to the bigger moments, too. I loved how the Disney characters actually interacted with the Org this time around, some of them getting amazing moments with them. I thought the Disney worlds were fantastic and an absolute joy. I can find a ton of things to like about all of them, and some of them (most of them?) I downright love and that's coming from someone who was always kind of ehh on how Disney has been used since KH1.

Going into the game, we were told that the Disney worlds were primarily for gameplay progression and the original worlds were primarily for story progression so I went into it expecting that the Disney worlds would be the huge gameplay environments while the OC worlds would be more pared down and streamlined so that stuff, idk, it just never bothered me? Like I see people complaining about Twilight Town and wanting it to be bigger and have more areas, but to me I guess I just don't see the need? I like that the worlds are as big as they need to be to do what they need to do, and we've played through these worlds a lot already.

I don't know. I guess I just made the decision going in knowing it wouldn't be perfect but to try and accept KH3 for what it was trying to be instead of what I would have liked to see. KH3 was always this big looming thing, a giant blank canvas that fans could project anything they wanted onto it, and what it could be and how it would develop and now that someone has to actually fill in that canvas and narrow the realm of possibility from what could happen to what does happen (while also wrestling with the reality of constraints such as budget, time, resources, etc) there was no way everyone was going to be satisfied. And some of those expectations simply are unrealistic and could never have been done. It was just juggling so much, had such an immense, impossible task on its shoulders. The development troubles. How much resources it takes to make things in the new gen. Having to recreate every single asset from scratch (and also not being able to have any assets carry over from one world to the next). Idk, I guess I'm just soft to it and to the devs. They're just people trying their best, putting 30,000+ hours of their life into this game.

I also feel like people kind of treat KH3 as an end. Like, that it was the only time for their fav characters to be important, to have their moment, to interact with each other. But it's not the end. Most if not all of these characters will carry forward to the new saga, where they will have more breathing room to have those interactions and dynamics grow and be shown. I had always believed that KH4 was the title to look forward to when it comes to the character interaction stuff because I knew that KH3 would be too busy focusing on the big plot climax to be able to deliver there, so again that stuff didn't bother me as much as others I guess.

I don't know, maybe KH3 was always destined to be very contentious but the amount of blowback for it has really surprised me this time for some reason. At times it almost feels like I played a different game from everyone else with the way they talk about it, haha. But to me, I loved it, fully. I saw a review before the game came out, the headline was something like "Kingdom Hearts III is an Ode to Joy". And that's honestly how I feel about the game. I just think it is so full of joy and life and it's brimming with it in every aspect of it. Every world has things I love about it. There was never a time I wasn't enjoying what I was playing, or wasn't full of wide-eyed wonder at it all. It has some of the highest highs in the series for me, full of amazing moments, and care, and laughter and fun. It renewed my faith in the series (especially when it comes to the Disney side of things) and made me excited for the future. Even now I keep finding new things that spark joy in me (like how you can ride the attractions in first person, how when Sora attacks while sliding down hills he uses his Keyblade like a skateboard, how you can melt the antlers on the Winterhorn... like I feel like every time I play the game I find a new little thing that just touches my heart and makes me happy).

The more time I spend away from the game, the more I find my affection for it growing.

Anyway, I'm not going to argue with anyone about my feelings about the game or anything, just wanted to put forth a different take I guess. The few gameplay shortcomings I did find all seem to be things that will be addressed in the future so I wasn't too miffed about it now. Maybe it really was just me, but for me KH3 was full to brimming with things to love about it. And that was the lasting impression I was left with.

Yeah I really loved the Disney worlds as well. It felt like KH1 again for sure, so I also agree it wasn't a mistake. All of the games are 80% Disney anyway so might as well focus on them a lot. I do want the KH original worlds to have at least some more time put into them in the future as well though. I did miss exploring them both old and new. But I also can't imagine them going backwards in regards to Disney worlds now.

And yeah, this is probably what has kept me relatively in check about certain characters as well. I think Aqua, Mickey, and Riku didn't get nearly as much credit as I would have liked, but I have hope all 3 will get moments in the future.

It's not that it was a bad idea per se, it was a bad idea here.
There's a problem with the "KH games were always about Disney for the most part" stance: that other KH games weren't Kingdom Hearts III, the Keyblade War between 20+ original characters and resolution scenarios connected with 4-5 original worlds.
Nobody cried when Castle Oblivion wasn't fully explorable in Days or DDD, because it was clearly an endgame point connected to Ventus being awake, therefore something related to the final clash with Xehanort.
A lot of instances and unresolved points weren't considered "flaws" in in-between KH titles because there was this ever present feeling that everything would've been resolved in KH III, so a lot of that was kept in suspesion. And when KH III dropped, it just couldn't keep up with what other games neglected, and ended neglecting those points as well or delivered them in a rushed manner.

I guess for some people the takeaway instead was that this is how KH games be, but I always saw it this way. Whenever a KH title didn't touch upon something main-plot related, those blank spots went piling up somewhere and I hoped for their time to shine when the time would've come.

Besides... I feel like KH1 and KH II go over original worlds far more than KH III does anyway. Traverse Town and Hollow Bastion/Radiant Garden are these big important places full of areas and forced returns to witness many important story events and connections, and they act as the HQ for the main group of good guys (namely Sora and the FF crew). KH II especially, it gives the main focus to Disney stuff but doesn't neglect to handle the fight for Hollow Bastion and all the intrigue and revelations tied to Ansem's Computer.
KH III cram all of the main stuff at the end and even there it's not even THAT much, considered that CO and Land of Departure are done in one clean swoop and the Graveyard is essentially walking to every single cutscene and event nonstop.

So not only I feel like KH III belongs in its own rank when it comes to this stuff and cannot always be compared with how older titles did, but it also kinda underperformed there. It wasn't even busy with the big plot climax, it was busy with Disney worlds and then rushed the big plot climax itself at the end.



The problem is that you're underselling the main bulk of the game as "Sora is off doing what he has to do", which in reality it translates to goofing around for 30 hours achieving essentially nothing.
It wasn't even "what he had to do", what he had to do was getting the power of waking back, and that had no realtion whatsoever with the Disney worlds.

I have little doubt that the intention was to paint the Roxas subplot as you wrote, but this is a videogame. Doesn't matter how many times you repeat POV and on-screen, it really doesn't make those scenes more immersive or cohesive when between one another I have... essentially the remaining 90% of the game which is about completely different tones and themes.
It's the same problem other KH titles had: I didn't care about seeing the Organization twirling their mustaches in KH II talking about what to do with this Sora fellow, and BbS and DDD having their little moral lesson and main-plot tie-in at the very end of each world when it all felt so disjointed with the rest of the game.

What I think Spockanort meant with the one hour for Roxas wasn't strictly the runtime in which Roxas is the subject of discussion, but rather that we only truly feel like this Roxas thing is relevant when Sora, the main character we're following and controlling, is actively engaged in it on an active and emotional level. And that only happens during Twilight Town's visit, anything else are expositionary cutscenes that only serve to remember the audience that this subplot is still ongoing, but nodding to every conversation will be the rest of Sora's contribution to it.

For anything else I'll just refer to what she said: if characters mentioning other characters and TALKING about saving them is enough for you to feel emtionally invested then good for you. For me that's only step 1, when you write the whole thing on paper, and step 2 is putting the effort to make me feel like it's part of my gaming experience and that at every turn I feel a real sense of progression in its resolution.



Since this was indeed just your contribution with your feelings on the game, I thought of avoiding replying here directly and put my thoughts on this part and what KH III represented in my first reply above.
Maybe it's just silly, but eh. Didn't feel like doing the "well, actually" here.

Other than that, and this is also just MY personal view on the matter and not some objective truth... I'm kinda tired of hoping that at the next turn things will be better and X character will finally say "tomatoes!" to Y character like we're all hoping they will, and that we'll have this fabled breathing room for both characters interactions and original worlds, only for the next KH game to come, NOT doing any of it or very little, and then going back into the waiting room for the next next KH game to turn the tables.

The other day I read some stray comments (I don't even remember who it was) saying that they hoped in the next Kingdom Hearts Ven and Roxas would've had some funny interactions while acknowledging their resemblance and connections. It's a small thing, really, but when I read it I went "Oh, God."
That was one of the "memes" for KH III. What people wished to see, among other things. And now they just transposed all of those into the next KH to wait for. And I'm like... I dunno. At some point I'm done playing the waiting game, I want my payoff. And the thing is that between marketing and interviews KH III was presented as this payoff, so I'm even less thrilled to just putting the lid back on my hopes and going back to waiting.

This is turning into a rant so I'll just say: this is grim. It's pessimistic. It's not how many of y'all feel, and I'm glad because I am not in an happy place when I think like this, lol.
I guess this was my try into making some understand where the salt and frustration come from and that I didn't just decided to hate this game on a daily whim.
I want to end on a positive note for both me and the game, so: I'm replaying KH III and discovered that the accessory you get for getting the bistrot to one star helps you cooking with excellent more often.
Those eggs have nothing on me now.

It's impossible to please everyone, but it's possible to please the majority.

Have Final Fantasy characters, not make Twilight Town smaller, Kairi actually doing something and Sora not being the only playable character during the Keyblade War, would help them achieving that. None of these are unrealistic demands.

Their excuse for the absence of Final Fantasy characters just isn't convincing.

There are too many original characters this time?! True.
But in the middle of so many random NPCs in Twilight Town, why Seifer's gang couldn't be there?! What's their excuse for this?!

There's no playable Radiant Garden?! Doesn't make sense considering how important that Original World has been for the plot, but whatever. Why Leon and Cid can't interact with Sora through the Gummiphone, when they were ones that helped Sora in the beginning?!

They can't answer this questions with logical answers because the truth is - There's no reason why FF characters couldn't appear in KH3.

I have little doubt that the intention was to paint the Roxas subplot as you wrote, but this is a videogame. Doesn't matter how many times you repeat POV and on-screen, it really doesn't make those scenes more immersive or cohesive when between one another I have... essentially the remaining 90% of the game which is about completely different tones and themes.

Isn't this the essence of KH? KH games are always like this (due to its unusual nature) so it seems like a weird "complaint" to me.
Anyway, it's your opinion and I have avoided expressing mine because I don't want to tell people how they should feel (and vice versa). You said you don't enjoy those scenes while I actually really like them (but when done right, so DDD doesn't belong here).

What I think Spockanort meant with the one hour for Roxas wasn't strictly the runtime in which Roxas is the subject of discussion, but rather that we only truly feel like this Roxas thing is relevant when Sora, the main character we're following and controlling, is actively engaged in it on an active and emotional level. And that only happens during Twilight Town's visit, anything else are expositionary cutscenes that only serve to remember the audience that this subplot is still ongoing, but nodding to every conversation will be the rest of Sora's contribution to it.

That's true for the [gummi]phone calls between Sora and Ienzo, but like I said there are other cutscenes that center around the Roxas (Naminé and Xion) plot and these don't serve the purpose of remembering us that the subplot exist, they forward it.

For anything else I'll just refer to what she said: if characters mentioning other characters and TALKING about saving them is enough for you to feel emtionally invested then good for you. For me that's only step 1, when you write the whole thing on paper, and step 2 is putting the effort to make me feel like it's part of my gaming experience and that at every turn I feel a real sense of progression in its resolution.

Why are you guys jumping to conclusions, especially when this is not what the discussion is about? I didn't say that I enjoyed it, or that I felt emotionally invested or, or, or. I'm saying that, objectively, the Roxas plot wasn't "relevant" just for a moment and then dropped until the end. If for whatever reason I'm wrong or if her comment was meant to express something else, then I'm of course all ears.

All they had to do in this game for my liking, for me to overlook other flaws that popped up, was not treat Kairi like a four letter word I won't say on a family site.

And they couldn't even manage that lowest of bars. So I can't be generous.

But I don't expect anyone to raise that issue with Yasue or any of them given the chance.

Yasue is not involved at all with writing the story so he wouldn't be able to comment on the matter. The interview makes mention of this several times.

"It's always been like this" is not an excuse. You expect subsequent titles to LEARN from their mistakes. You expect them to take feedback from that which is available. And as you mature with the series, you also expect it to mature itself. That's what good series do.

That's why GoW is so damn praised by a vast majority. Yes, you CAN satisfy everyone as that has clearly demonstrated. You just have to want to. You have to understand what it is about your previous game hardcore fans latched onto, expand on that and then explore new and different things in other areas. So likewise, that is also not an excuse.

What's more, KH3 makes FUNDAMENTAL screw ups that no piece of entertainment should ever make. It's practically Creative Writing 101 that you do not jam pack tons of exposition and plot into such small portion of the runtime. This is entry level stuff, and if Nomura were a true writer I'd be baffled. But he isn't. He is a character designer and director. He isn't equipped to write a sound narrative.

FF characters run Radient Garden, then suddenly don't. How did that happen? It's literally a tremendous plot hole that is never addressed. So it's not even about "KH being a crossover" series. It's just about sound writing, it's about answering questions the audience will obviously have.

I've also never, EVER, seen the kind of magnitude of the Deus Ex Machina during that entire ending sequence in my entire 30 year life experiencing entertainment. Most is not explained: where the train comes from, why Sora doesn't use it again, zettaflare, where and why souls of past Keybladers come into play when... hey, there's that train remember, everyone except Sora and Roxas suddenly becoming incompetent, Xehanort with the true Keyblade plus 12 super humans absorbed is beat by a Trinity... a Trinity (don't give me "power of friendship" nonsense).

Then there's the stuff that IS explained, but comes across convenient, lazy, still nonsensical or just plain ridiculous. Sora dies THREE... THREE... times in the span of one end game. That still makes me laugh at just how ludicrous that sounds. Where's the urgency? Where are the PERMANENT consequences? Why should I care when I know Sora is returning? What is the point, its narrative relevance?

Infinity War killed half the cast even though you knew they'd return. But you know WHY they did (besides saving money)? Because they wanted to provide motivation for the remaining few, because they wanted to give the original team one last hoorah. It had purpose. Sora's deaths are just cheap attempts at shock value. There's no reason for them. And it certainly wasn't to show Kairi's relevance/strength as a character by saving him the first time. If it was, they wouldn't have made her the quintessential plot device of the entire series.

Sure The Final World is explained... but why does it exist? What about the Underworld in Olympus, why do the souls go there instead of to The Final World? Why is the lore so loose? Where is the discipline?

I know KH is full of this stuff, but it's usually kept to a minimum and is spread across the entire series. Here, we get 10 titles worth of complete nonsense in one game, with about 9 titles of it happening in the last 3 or so hours. I don't care if you like it, you can like it and i'd never attack you for it, but you can't look at it objectively and say "this is okay." Objectively, this is bad writing. Objectively, this is terrible pacing. Objectively, this shouldn't be acceptable.

I mean... I don't think that objectively is the right word here. I think that... unfortunately, the relevance of a specific subplot can't be objectively described. I mean, when does a plot become relevant? X number of cutscenes, X number of mentions, X number of name drops? I think the point that's trying to be made is that... in terms of gameplay and story, we as the player hardly ever make any steps towards reviving Roxas. Sora recognizes, occasionally, that people are working towards this behind the scenes. But for the vast majority of the game (AKA the Disney Worlds) Roxas is an afterthought. As soon as Sora touches down in say... Toy Box, all mentions of Roxas, the urgency of bringing him back, it all goes away. He ceases to be relevant to the story. In KH2... this wasn't really the case. When Sora lands in Land of Dragons, he talks about finding Riku, stopping the heartless. It's tied to the main storyline. In KH1, there's a super easy way to continue plot relevance with the Council of Villains, the search for Kairi, Riku's continued appearances, and so on.

In KH3, Roxas quite literally gets dropped. Early on, we're led to believe that he's going to be one of the seven guardians. They make a big deal out of bringing him back. But then suddenly... everybody stops talking about him. Axel hardly mentions Roxas, even when meeting Ven again. Nobody brings up Roxas' similarity in appearance to Ven at the Mysterious Tower. Even in the Keyblade Graveyard, none of the characters mention him. He has dropped relevancy until he shows up again.

Of course, as I mentioned before, I think that relevance is subjective. The player decides (based on what they think about) how important a character is in the story. How important a subplot is. It's like how... people talk about the Soriku romance as being incredibly relevant throughout the series. Since it's basing itself on interactions that can be subjectively interpreted, it's hard to be concrete about how relevant this subplot is throughout the franchise. Roxas in KH3 is much the same way. Some people might have played the whole game waiting for Roxas, and so he feels more relevant than to people who notice that he doesn't get mentioned in the back half of the game.

There's nothing wrong with the Disney half of the game. The lacking half is the original content. They could've managed one or two full-fledged original worlds, and, no, I don't consider that to be "expecting too much" of them. There hasn't been a KH game prior to KH3 that was lacking in that aspect--even the most recent title, 3D, had two huge worlds for the original side of things with TT and TWTNW--so I'm not going to pull out a violin for SE and how hard it is to please the fanbase when that isn't an over-expectation.

I'm sorry, but isn't that what easy mode is for? I get that this is an entry point for a lot of gamers into Kingdom Hearts, but the harder difficulties should you know, actually be difficult! Part of the memorable Kingdom Hearts experience with previous games was the occasional hard boss like Urusula or Xaldin.

I genuinely do hope that they patch the higher difficulties with more of a challenge, I don't want that exclusive to critical. And like everyone else is mentioning, bulk up the size of Twilight Town with extra environments to explore and quests to do. Reintroduce the Final Fantasy cast there to conclude their stories if need be.

It's relevant when, if you cut it out, the game doesn't make sense. If you cut out that plot, then Vexen nevers joins the Organization because he lacks the desire for atonement. If Vexen doesn't join the Organization, then it's not complete. If it's not complete, then there's no 13 vs 7 clash. If there's no clash, there's no KH3.

I think the point that's trying to be made is that... in terms of gameplay and story, we as the player hardly ever make any steps towards reviving Roxas.

That's more your personal problem than the game's problem, honestly.

Sora recognizes, occasionally, that people are working towards this behind the scenes. But for the vast majority of the game (AKA the Disney Worlds) Roxas is an afterthought. As soon as Sora touches down in say... Toy Box, all mentions of Roxas, the urgency of bringing him back, it all goes away. He ceases to be relevant to the story. In KH2... this wasn't really the case. When Sora lands in Land of Dragons, he talks about finding Riku, stopping the heartless. It's tied to the main storyline. In KH1, there's a super easy way to continue plot relevance with the Council of Villains, the search for Kairi, Riku's continued appearances, and so on.

So? "Save Roxas" is not the plot of KH3, the plot of KH3 is "Defeat MX" (more or less). The overarching post-KH2 plot is "Everyone connected to Sora need to be saved" which was first set up by Blank Points, and that means Terra, Aqua, Ven, Roxas, Naminé and Xion. They know where Aqua is (and they know that they need her to find Ventus); they do not know Terra's location (and if he's alive to begin with), they don't know how to bring back Roxas and Naminé (and if that's even possible) and they don't know or remember Xion. The top priority is saving Aqua and regaining the power of waking. If they save Aqua and Ventus, they have 7 guardians of Light and the clash can happen. Saving Roxas or Naminé is irrelevant when it comes to defeating Xehanort, but it's relevant to KH3 in general because a lot depends on it (like I said before). There's no plot urgency in saving Roxas, that's "just" a personal desire from Sora developed after everything post-KH2. It's not surprising that, after doing his part, Sora stops "actively" trying to bring Roxas back. All he could possibly do would be taking a KH science class so that he can either a) make a replica b) research the heart in order to find out how to release Roxas' heart without stabbing himself. It's prettyt obvious why none of this happen.
Differents plots can happen at the same time, you know. Sora is trying to regain the power of waking, Riku and Mickey are trying to find/save Aqua, while Ienzo (and later other people too) is trying to understand how to bring back Roxas and Naminé.

In KH3, Roxas quite literally gets dropped. Early on, we're led to believe that he's going to be one of the seven guardians.

How?

Axel hardly mentions Roxas, even when meeting Ven again. Nobody brings up Roxas' similarity in appearance to Ven at the Mysterious Tower.

This is literally what happens.

Even in the Keyblade Graveyard, none of the characters mention him.

Why should they, since Roxas has nothing to do with KG?

Of course, as I mentioned before, I think that relevance is subjective. The player decides (based on what they think about) how important a character is in the story. How important a subplot is.

It's definitely not subjective. If you cut it out and then the game falls apart, then it's relevant.
A perfect example: Are Maleficent and Pete in the game? Yes. Do they do their thing? Yes. Would KH3 be exactly the same without them? Absolutely yes, and this regardless of how the player feels about them.
Or: Are Cloud and Sephiroth, while part of the game (and not optional content like in KH1), completely irrelevant? Yes, KH2 would be the same without their scenes.

You could say the same for every Disney character in the game other than Mickey. Even Donald and Goofy are window dressing in KH2.

So? "Save Roxas" is not the plot of KH3, the plot of KH3 is "Defeat MX" (more or less).

The endless side games between KH2 and KH3 repeat and repeat that Sora must heal the hurt, blah blah, so I'm not sure anyone would be wrong to have expected more out of that side of things from KH3.

Here's all I'll say. If you remove the mentions of saving Roxas from anything Sora is involved in... the story still makes sense. That's what I mean. Roxas only becomes relevant the second he shows up to save Xion at the KG. If you remove Roxas from Saix' story, it still would make sense. Saix feels bad for the way he treated Axel, and wants to save Mystery Girl. So he recruits Vexen for a mysterious replica project. Sora never visits Twlight Town, so he never discovers the computer in the basement. Ienzo never cares about reconstructing Roxas heart and focuses instead of the other two hearts in Sora. Vexen uses his replica project alongside Ienzo to revive Xion. The plot still functions. Yeah, it's awkward... but even still. That's all external plot. It has no relevance to Sora's journey... which is what I think the original point was.

That difficulty explanation is awful. No one wanted the hardest difficulty to be that easy. And still mad about the lack of FF characters

The plot still functions? Saix wants to save Mystery Girl and to make up with Axel. So he recruits Vexen because... I don't know? How is the Replica Program related to Mystery Girl and Axel? Saix recruits Vexen because replicas are the key in bringing back Roxas and Naminé. Vexen on the other hand accepts to join the Organization because he wants to bring back those people too. If you take away the desire to bring back Roxas, Naminé and Xion, none of this happen (no matter how hard one can try to twist the plot).

It was never a blank canvas. KH3 had 8 games worth of precedence which standardized most of the expectations surrounding it, creating a baseline from which fans drew in order to construct an idea of what the game would look like as a really simple matter of maximizing its potential. It's not a problem of some abstract, unknowable formula that Nomura had to decrypt over the course of development while beset by rigorous technical restrictions-- which he would have been made aware of during the earliest planning stages for the game as a matter of course; the complaints people put forward are about deliberate choices and miscalculations in narrative and game design which detract from the experience in significant and obvious ways.

The repeated attempts to frame these points of dispute as the result of an inevitable faction of dissatisfied consumers is disingenuous: there is a sizable consensus that the game is poorly handled and there is practically a syllabus of compelling arguments to be made to that effect which, rather than being evaluated and countered, are routinely met with deflection and defamation of character by a portion of the fanbase which doesn't appear to have the critical capacity of thought to comprehend what constitutes a reasonable relationship between the modern audience and storyteller. The insinuation that people should "accept what is" and carry water for the franchise no matter how it progresses is facile and inimical to the purpose of audience engagement as an approach which assumes a mutuality of benefits for both fans and creators contingent upon the amount of time and energy on the part of the former spent providing a variety of promotional platforms for the latter, who in turn must actively incentivize the fanbase to continue to signal boost their product by conveying a tangible sense of goodwill (not PR) and interest (not subservience) towards the questions and desires of their audience. KH3, and arguably the KH series on the whole, has largely eroded that goodwill; that may or may not have a lasting impact on the future of the brand, but it stands to reason that wasn't the intended outcome.

I think the Final Fantasy gang from Radiant Garden being present would have affected the end of the game in a negative way. It would be weird to go to the Keyblade War and say "no Leon and the gang, you guys can't come with us to fight the guy that is trying to destroy the entire universe". If they did come with us to the Keyblade Graveyard, it would have been weird having them fight with us in the last fight (visually it would have just been too much and watered down everything else that happened).

I would have used them like this:
Sora and the gang land in Radiant Garden to talk to Ienzo (in person) about resurrecting Roxas. While talking to him, Radiant Garden is attacked by Terra-Xehanort. Leon and the gang appear to help Sora fight him. After an epic battle in the courtyard, Leon and the others agree that they will stay back and protect the castle so Ienzo can finish his work while Sora continues searching for the power of waking. While in this world, Leon and Yuffie / Cloud and Aerith are on your team depending on where you are.

Come to think of it Yen Sid could have just brought FF characters with him to help hold back the Heartless Dark Riku summoned. That would have been the perfect contribution from them during the climax.

Nomura even stated in the Utimania that he had the team make polygon models of Leon and others just in case, but he "couldn't find a place to use them." Yeah, that giant, Leon-shaped hole in Radiant Garden's plot is just so easy to miss.

At this point I'm wondering if Nomura needed to get approval to use them. We've had something similar happen with Laguna. Where he'd either be in BBS or original Dissidia's sequel, because somehow doing both was not an option.

If approval did need to happen, then having the team make models for them makes more sense.

Whatever the reason is, the one they're giving is unconvincing and downright bad PR.

^

What happened with Laguna sounds just like what happened with Mickey Mouse in KH1, so maybe it is something that Square Enix feels funny about (but now they're throwing the same characters into a million mobile games. If it nets money...)

The FF cameos were never part of any of the Final battles before in games they appeared in so it would also have been no problem to just leave them be at Radiant Garden this time around too.
They could have served as RG specific party members for both a Riku/Mickey scenario and a possible visit from Sora, regardless of how exactly it plays out and who the opponent might be.
Heck, they could even have thrown in a short segment where Leon & Yuffie lead a rescued Aqua and restored Ven (with Aqua being the playable character) down into the basement to visit the chamber of repose and recover Aqua's Keyblade + armor.




Indeed, yet it could also have just been Nomura being salty at FF in general and wanting his pseudo-FF Verum Rex being the only FF-esque characters present in the whole game.
Apart from the whole Ux-stuff and the new saga being now the stuff Nomura's most excited for, Yozora seems to be also high on his personal priority and favorites list.
The whole "too crowded" explanation falls flat on its face anyways as they even bothered to include Aeleus and Dilan, despite them never saying a word and only walking/standing around uselessly throughout the whole story.

Maybe Nomura just wants to replace all already known FF cameos with KH original characters completely in the long run anyways, considering how nonchalantly both Yasue and him approach the issue, not to mention the high surprise of fans mentioning this issue so often seems genuine on their part.

Based on Yozora, Magia, and Aegis I wonder if next saga instead of FF character we get more OCs based on them? Something like a female keyblade wielder resembling Lightning.

I doubt it. This series can barely handle the OCs it already has. Adding even more on top of the ones we already have would be too much. I can see one or two new characters but at this point the series needs to actually utilize the huge cast it has rather than use AT them.

I mean they have to know by now that people want to see FF cameos right? It's weird how adamant they are about why they didn't appear. Unfortunately, I don't expect any of them to show up in DLC. Too bad

I mean, yeah now they do since it’s been the biggest complaint after “the game is too easy” and “tf did you guys do to Kairi”

It’s PR talk at this point. They probably either have a specific reason why they weren’t in the game that they can’t talk about or they genuinely didn’t think we’d care/notice.

We can still hope for something in the DLC. I don’t think it is too late.

I agree that adding more OCs to an already bloated cast can do more harm than good. I just thought OCs based on FF characters would be a better alternative than none at all. Who knows if we will ever get to see FF cameos again?

Come to think of it it did happen prior to Yozora with Axel.

With many of the original characters now out of the series for good (barring Nomura changing his mind or making them relevant in KHUX), I can see new OCs being made.

But I wouldn’t want OCs made of Final Fantasy characters when we could have those Final Fantasy characters themselves (don’t hit me with that “their not exactly the same, y’all know what I mean).

Yozora, Aegis, and Magia are clearly the way they are due to Nomura’s childlike pettiness and that’s why we are getting OC characters based on Final Fantasy characters.

But for more characters like that? No thank you, give me Zidane and Balthier in Treasure Planet. Give me the Onion Knight in Dwarf Woodlands. Give me Rinoa in Radiant Garden along with everyone else.

That’s true, but I think it still aggravates the issue rather than soothe. Fans never stopped wanting Reno despite Nomura making Axel. Instead, they all wanted to see Reno and Axel interact back in the mid-2000s.

Or like now people don’t feel like their Noctis itch has been scratched with Yozora. Now I think people want to see Yozora, Riku, Noctis, and Sora all in the same room to see what happens haha

It’s fun, but it creates new problems

The first game was billed as a collaboration between Disney and FF properties and for the third installment - meant to 'cap-off' what the first one started - to not acknowledge its roots is more than a bit jarring/odd. And from a storytelling perspective, the FF-crew in RG purportedly mean a lot to Sora and his development as a protagonist. It feels off not to have gotten to see them this time around. I don't even play FF but I felt the absence and missed the spontaneity of seeing how these characters would be incorporated.

Reminds me that he's not in the current Dissidia and I'm still mad about that!

Dissidia needs more dads.


I feel if it was from him being salty then I don't think he would have models made in the first place, but this would make sense why the team was apparently mad at him if their removal was from him being pissy.

With Verum Rex, I know a lot of people just take is as Nomura being salty, but for all we know he might have been planning to use Versus XIII in KH this whole time. We'll probably never know the whole picture, sadly.

The whole "too crowded" explanation falls flat on its face anyways as they even bothered to include Aeleus and Dilan, despite them never saying a word and only walking/standing around uselessly throughout the whole story.

^This. Phil also had no reason with being in Olympus and yet time was spent on making and shoving him in.

The worst part of the Restoration Committee's exclusion is how they're not acknowledged at all. Cloud, Auron, and stupid Seifer are mentioned in one way or another, but it was apparently too hard to have Sora ask Ienzo about them.

Maybe Nomura just wants to replace all already known FF cameos with KH original characters completely in the long run anyways, considering how nonchalantly both Yasue and him approach the issue, not to mention the high surprise of fans mentioning this issue so often seems genuine on their part.

That still bugs me. How they seemed genuinely surprised by it. The FF cameos has always been one of the top things fans yell about, so hearing them say otherwise is just...off. I mean, maybe they really didn't know, but it's something rather difficult to avoid.

Fans just want KH to be a never-ending Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man meme.

Which characters do you count as "many"? From what I've observed only Master Xehanort, Ansem SoD, Xemnas, Young Xehanort, Eraqus and possibly Vanitas are out of the series for good. These departures are more than evened out by bringing back the Foretellers and introducing Yozora.
Count in possible Skuld as Subject X, Ephemer, Strelitzia and Blaine as well and the cast is already bigger than ever before.

Marluxia, Larxene and Luxord are outright implied to return later down the line while Isa, Lea and Ventus have laid out possible future character arcs connected to UX-Lore stuff.
If Lea and Ventus are involved though I doubt that Terra, Aqua, Roxas and Xion will just be thrown aside and play no more role whatsoever.
Ansem the Wise and the apprentices like Ienzo may get the treatment of wandering NPC in their own world only but they're still not out for good.

Yozora sets a precedence case though so the possibility of Nomura going this route is at least there.
Shoving the FF cameos more and more into the background and out already started with BBS itself when Nomura chose to scratch the planned child versions of Squall, Cloud, Yuffie and Aerith in favor of including Isa, Lea and Ansem's apprentices aka the "popular" Org XIII-characters instead which I now realize was practically an action repeated now in KH III.



They might have been included in early drafts and test versions and if I recall correctly Nomura stated once that there was much stuff they had to cut in the end when they put all assets together. If him being salty did play a role I'd say the FF cameos were one of the first assets that landed on the cutting floor.

Like I sad above in answer to Chaser, we already had this very scenario back in 2010 with Radiant Garden in BBS.

It is certainly possible and even likely that Nomura planned to retool his "Versus XIII" vision and ideas for use within the KH series shortly after he was removed as Director from the actual thing which was then rebranded as FF XV.
It being planned for a longer time doesn't rule out it still being done in part out of spite or saltiness. It is remarkable that Nomura himself seems to have changed quite a bit in recent years as while originally characters like Sora, Luxord or Roxas were his favorites in the last three years or so he often cited Ansem SoD or Xehanort as more relatable and once even said he doesn't empathize with Sora at all.

For those who know KH's history the complete silence and omission of the Restoration Committee is certainly jarring and outright creepy, yet when I hear Yasue talk about how they prioritized appealing to younger and new audiences this could even be deliberate to establish Ienzo, Ansem the Wise & co. as the permanent "Mission control" and scientific assistants in RG for the main cast, completely taking over the roles once held by the FF cameos and thus make them in-universe what Nomura and Yasue meta-wise apparently already decided they are: Redundant and no longer neeeded.

I dunno, do Japanese fans also often voice demands for the FF cameos or is it more a western phenomena? As it looks like Nomura and co. apparently are not as versed about the interests and priorities the western fanbase seems to have, regardless of any possible PR claims of the contrary.

Japanese fans seem to want them as much as we do, so it isn't a regional discrepancy.

I see, so that can't be the reason.

Maybe they're just really determined to write them out and replace them with KH Originals after all?
That it happened twice already, once in BBS and now in KH III, makes me think it is a deliberate thing.

And even then they could come back because damn this series.

Yozora sets a precedence case though so the possibility of Nomura going this route is at least there. Shoving the FF cameos more and more into the background and out already started with BBS itself when Nomura chose to scratch the planned child versions of Squall, Cloud, Yuffie and Aerith in favor of including Isa, Lea and Ansem's apprentices aka the "popular" Org XIII-characters instead which I now realize was practically an action repeated now in KH III.

Jeez, how could I forget this? Would have been a better example for me to use than Laguna (or alongside it.)

They might have been included in early drafts and test versions and if I recall correctly Nomura stated once that there was much stuff they had to cut in the end when they put all assets together. If him being salty did play a role I'd say the FF cameos were one of the first assets that landed on the cutting floor. Like I sad above in answer to Chaser, we already had this very scenario back in 2010 with Radiant Garden in BBS.

What's kinda funny with both cases is there's an issue with the games trimming the meat instead of the fat. Too much happening in BBS? Don't have us visit every world three times. So much time and space used on TAV doing nothing could have been avoided if some worlds were exclusive. Which also would have made the story go smoother. In fact having TAV visit every world just makes it look like there wasn't anything else planned at all so was padded it out as much as possible.

KH3 was too focused on making the Disney worlds big and 100 Acre Wood just exists to take up space. There's probably a few other things that'd count as "fat" but they're not coming to mind at the moment.

It is certainly possible and even likely that Nomura planned to retool his "Versus XIII" vision and ideas for use within the KH series shortly after he was removed as Director from the actual thing which was then rebranded as FF XV.

I meant more that he could have thought of doing that while he was still on the project. DDD I believe was near finished while he was still on Versus XIII, and with the TWEWY crew in DDD, it's possible he could have already been planning on using video game worlds in the future before he got kicked off Versus.

I just remembered something Nomrua said back in 2010.

Granted he's talking about gameplay here, but I still find it interesting.

It being planned for a longer time doesn't rule out it still being done in part out of spite or saltiness.

However this is very true.

It is remarkable that Nomura himself seems to have changed quite a bit in recent years as while originally characters like Sora, Luxord or Roxas were his favorites in the last three years or so he often cited Ansem SoD or Xehanort as more relatable and once even said he doesn't empathize with Sora at all.

That's pretty normal really. It's like when a kid loves the young main character and hates the "stupid adults", but as they get older their perspective changes and start to understand and relate with the adult characters while wondering why they ever liked the main character in the first place. The same thing happens with creators.

I'd say Nomura still likes Luxord considering he's one of the better implemented characters.

For those who know KH's history the complete silence and omission of the Restoration Committee is certainly jarring and outright creepy, yet when I hear Yasue talk about how they prioritized appealing to younger and new audiences this could even be deliberate to establish Ienzo, Ansem the Wise & co. as the permanent "Mission control" and scientific assistants in RG for the main cast, completely taking over the roles once held by the FF cameos and thus make them in-universe what Nomura and Yasue meta-wise apparently already decided they are: Redundant and no longer neeeded.

Would also explain why the original worlds themselves were given less emphasis, but now they have to deal with all these new fans asking where the FF characters are! *evil laughter*

I hope you're right! I really wanted to see Squall, Aerith, and Yuffie at Radiant Garden or Cloud, Tifa, and Sephiroth to resolve that plotline or even newer characters like Lightning and Rinoa. I hope they can still do something

Lightning and Rinoa were the two FF characters I was looking forward to seeing in KH3 the most. Based on her storyline in the games I thought Lightning would be the perfect candidate for Hades to recruit to fight the Gods.

The Final Fantasy characters in Disney stories write themselves. I have no idea why they decided against it, and I’m furious that they squandered that.