The Future of Kingdom Hearts franchise

In this forum, we can discuss all things related to the video game franchise known as Kingdom Hearts. In my personal opinion, Kingdom Hearts is one of my favorite video game franchises of all time. I believe that the video game’s future lies in Kingdom Hearts Union Cross’s story and how it ends. If you have played Kingdom Hearts 3 then you know who the future antagonist possibly is. Nevertheless, I do not like that Nomura is letting a mobile game be the beginning of his story especially because he has now changed the beginning of his story three times now. First, it was Kingdom Hearts 1, then it was Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, and now its Kingdom Hearts Chained Key/Unchained Key/Union Cross. My hope is that Nomura focuses on the future of Kingdom Hearts instead of the past of Kingdom Hearts.

Now, unto the positives of Kingdom Hearts. I enjoy the characters of Sora, Riku, Kairi, and company. In particular, my favorite characters of the franchise are Riku and Aqua. I also like the story for the most part. I enjoy the story of Kingdom Hearts 1, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Kingdom Hearts 2, Kingdom Hearts 358/2, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, and Kingdom Hearts 3. I do not like Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance because of Young Xehanort and Kingdom Hearts: Recoded is just a computerized recap of Kingdom Hearts 1. For my opinions on the mobile game of Kingdom Hearts Union Cross, I like the Daybreak Town aspects but the other parts of the story when travelling the other worlds feel like rehashed story lines from previous games. Overall, I like the story of Kingdom Hearts. I just hope that Nomura starts to slow down the development of his story telling because I felt that the second half of Kingdom Hearts 3 was too fast compared to Kingdom Hearts 2.

For this forum, I want you to answer the following questions for me:

1) What is your favorite game of the Kingdom Hearts series?

For me, my favorite game is Kingdom Hearts 2

2) Who are your favorite character(s) of the Kingdom Hearts series?

As mentioned, before I like Riku because of his character development through the franchise. I also like Aqua because she cares for her friends and works hard to keep the worlds and her friendships from falling apart.

3) What are the positives and negatives of the main numbered games (Kingdom Hearts 1, Kingdom Hearts 2, and Kingdom Hearts 3)?

Positives of Kingdom Hearts 1 are the story has a great balance of Final Fantasy and classic Disney. Negatives were the camera of the game was difficult to handle and the movement of Sora was not as mobile as he is in future games.

Positives of Kingdom Hearts 2 are the story and characters. There are a lot of good feeling moments in the game. Roxas seeing Sora for the first time, Sora reuniting with Riku and Kairi, and Sora returning home for the first time since KH1. Negatives of Kingdom Hearts 2 the difficult of the game is inconsistent when it comes to boss fights. For example, Hades in Olympus Coliseum is a lot easier than the Lingering Will.

Positive of Kingdom Hearts 3 are the characters and the first half of the story. I enjoyed the reunions of characters at the Keyblade Graveyard, I enjoyed Sora getting his powers back, and all of the new worlds. Negatives the story is rushed in the second half. Ventus and Aqua were saved way too fast and the villains’ farewells are anticlimax at best.

4) What would you like to see in future Kingdom Hearts games?

I would like for the future antagonist of the story to take the story in a little bit more of a darker direction than Xehanort did. As Master Xehanort says, “There needs to be a balance between light and darkness”. I feel like there are too many heroes and not enough villains in the story anymore.

5) What do you like and dislike about Tetsuya Nomura’s works in Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts?

I like the art style and story arcs of Nomura’s characters. I feel like Nomura is good at character development and story telling when he is not on a clock to complete the story at a particular time. I dislike rushed stories as described above and long now in development cycles to create his type of Square Enix games. I can wait at least five years but some games from Nomura can take a decade to fully develop. For example, Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts 3.

• This topic was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by theanimatedgamers.