Oh Kingdom Hearts, will you ever move forward instead of all over the place?

[Canadamus Prime]

Yeah I was done with the series after KH2. For one thing I didn't feel like buying all the different systems to play the spin-offs, but then I caught bits of the lore that had been thrown in in the spin-offs and thought it was convoluted as fuck. And one thing that really bugged my is that in the first game the Keyblade was introduced as this legendary item, and a key point they kept referring to it as THE Keyblade, not A Keyblade, but by the end of KH2 everyone and their dog is wielding one. Kinda diminishes the things legendary status there.

It also messes up the (somewhat goofy) symbolism of the keyblade. There were always two key blades. And what was Sora's key called? The kingdom key.

The keys to the kingdom were the two keys that opened up the gates to heaven in catholicism. Kingdom hearts was supposed to be heaven, and the two kingdom keys were supposed to be the way to open the gate. Then kh 2 came out, and all that got thrown out the window. Now everyone and their grandma gets a key blade.

I didn't know about the parallels to Catholicism, but I compare it to the Super Saiyan transformation in Dragon Ball Z. When it was first introduced it was supposed to be this thing of legend, not seen for a thousand years. Fast forward 2 arcs later and everyone and their dog is a Super Saiyan. I believe it was even lampshaded at one point.
And didn't they introduce a "keyblade war" or something in which entire armies had keyblades, and a "super keybllade" (I forget what it was called). I got most of this for the Lore in a Minute series on YouTube which isn't always accurate so I might not know what I'm talking about.

Yeah, that sums it up. That's the point where I groaned and shook my head. There are likely tens of thousands of keyblades in existence, according to Birth by Sleep, which was a total mess. They tried to remedy this somewhat by saying that there were two super unique keyblades called the X-blades, but it all sounded like a bunch of waffle. I miss the simplicity of the first game. You're DBZ comparison is completely on point. The key blade was supposed to be a special weapon, but now it just feels like any mass produced tool. Anyone whose actually supposed to be useful ends up with a key blade.

Kingdom Hearts, like Final Fantasy, has given way to the worst excesses of Square Enix. They just don't know how to tell stories anymore.

Were they called X-blades? I thought that might be it, but then I thought no, that can't be right. In any case, given that there was once thousands of Keyblade wielders battling it out over... something there might as well be a vending machine that dispenses them. I first noticed this when playing KH2 when Riku casually tosses Kairi a Keyblade like he was loaning her his pencil.

Much like a lot of these companies, Square-Enix has gotten much too big for it's britches and is motivated more by the desire to make money than by the desire to create anything meaningful.

Ugh. Square has to make everything confusing. The "X" in this case is referring to the greek letter "Chi."

It can be pronounced "cai" or "Key." It's often associated with Christ in classical thought. Hence X-mas. Actually pronounced "Chi-mis," or "christ-mas." So its written as greek letter "X", and then blade. X-blade, pronounced "cai-blade." It's one blade made out of two souls. I assume it's supposed to perform the same function as the original two key blades, but it's gotten just plain silly. I guess my liberal arts degree was good for something after all. I'm qualified to talk about the symbolism in a Square-Enix game : P

In Birth by Sleep the finale takes place in the Key Blade graveyard, where two large armies clashed. We see thousands of key blades lying around. Presumably this is where the others all come from. Furthermore, key blade masters are now a knighthood that got wiped out, like the jedi. They even have that seduced by the dark side thing going on. Originally the key blade master was supposed to be a chosen hero figure.

Oh, well that sounds less stupid. Although that could really get confusing because you'd have the keyblades and then the "Chi"-blade which are supposed to be pronounced the same way.

So they're stealing ideas from Star Wars? Ugh, I liked it better when it was just Sora was the chosen one, he wielded a legendary weapon, and he had to save the multiverse.

 

[Fox12]

Yeah I was done with the series after KH2. For one thing I didn't feel like buying all the different systems to play the spin-offs, but then I caught bits of the lore that had been thrown in in the spin-offs and thought it was convoluted as fuck. And one thing that really bugged my is that in the first game the Keyblade was introduced as this legendary item, and a key point they kept referring to it as THE Keyblade, not A Keyblade, but by the end of KH2 everyone and their dog is wielding one. Kinda diminishes the things legendary status there.

It also messes up the (somewhat goofy) symbolism of the keyblade. There were always two key blades. And what was Sora's key called? The kingdom key.

The keys to the kingdom were the two keys that opened up the gates to heaven in catholicism. Kingdom hearts was supposed to be heaven, and the two kingdom keys were supposed to be the way to open the gate. Then kh 2 came out, and all that got thrown out the window. Now everyone and their grandma gets a key blade.

I didn't know about the parallels to Catholicism, but I compare it to the Super Saiyan transformation in Dragon Ball Z. When it was first introduced it was supposed to be this thing of legend, not seen for a thousand years. Fast forward 2 arcs later and everyone and their dog is a Super Saiyan. I believe it was even lampshaded at one point.
And didn't they introduce a "keyblade war" or something in which entire armies had keyblades, and a "super keybllade" (I forget what it was called). I got most of this for the Lore in a Minute series on YouTube which isn't always accurate so I might not know what I'm talking about.

Yeah, that sums it up. That's the point where I groaned and shook my head. There are likely tens of thousands of keyblades in existence, according to Birth by Sleep, which was a total mess. They tried to remedy this somewhat by saying that there were two super unique keyblades called the X-blades, but it all sounded like a bunch of waffle. I miss the simplicity of the first game. You're DBZ comparison is completely on point. The key blade was supposed to be a special weapon, but now it just feels like any mass produced tool. Anyone whose actually supposed to be useful ends up with a key blade.

Kingdom Hearts, like Final Fantasy, has given way to the worst excesses of Square Enix. They just don't know how to tell stories anymore.

Were they called X-blades? I thought that might be it, but then I thought no, that can't be right. In any case, given that there was once thousands of Keyblade wielders battling it out over... something there might as well be a vending machine that dispenses them. I first noticed this when playing KH2 when Riku casually tosses Kairi a Keyblade like he was loaning her his pencil.

Much like a lot of these companies, Square-Enix has gotten much too big for it's britches and is motivated more by the desire to make money than by the desire to create anything meaningful.

Ugh. Square has to make everything confusing. The "X" in this case is referring to the greek letter "Chi."

It can be pronounced "cai" or "Key." It's often associated with Christ in classical thought. Hence X-mas. Actually pronounced "Chi-mis," or "christ-mas." So its written as greek letter "X", and then blade. X-blade, pronounced "cai-blade." It's one blade made out of two souls. I assume it's supposed to perform the same function as the original two key blades, but it's gotten just plain silly. I guess my liberal arts degree was good for something after all. I'm qualified to talk about the symbolism in a Square-Enix game : P

In Birth by Sleep the finale takes place in the Key Blade graveyard, where two large armies clashed. We see thousands of key blades lying around. Presumably this is where the others all come from. Furthermore, key blade masters are now a knighthood that got wiped out, like the jedi. They even have that seduced by the dark side thing going on. Originally the key blade master was supposed to be a chosen hero figure.

Oh, well that sounds less stupid. Although that could really get confusing because you'd have the keyblades and then the "Chi"-blade which are supposed to be pronounced the same way.

So they're stealing ideas from Star Wars? Ugh, I liked it better when it was just Sora was the chosen one, he wielded a legendary weapon, and he had to save the multiverse.

Birth by Sleep is literally just Revenge of the Sith. Terra is Anakin, his master is Obi-Wan or Yoda, and Xehanort is Palpatine. The only character I really liked was Aqua. She was actually pretty cool.

 

[Fox12]

snip

You seem pretty well-versed, so I have another question.

What do you think happens if someone "obtains" Kingdom Hearts? Do you think it originally would do something else?

That's always seemed kinda vague to me.

I'm not really sure. It seems to change a little bit from game to game.

The first game had this whole "light" vs "dark" thing going on. Fake Ansem thought it would grant him unlimited power, and he believed it was a doorway to darkness. Then Sora says that he knows kingdom hearts is light, at which point light comes pouring through the doorway. So is it a place, or is it a source of power? Basically, just a mcguffin? It's not clear. The characters don't seem to really understand it themselves, but the first game seems to imply that it's a source of light. Hence, the heaven metaphor (I don't think kingdom hearts is literally heaven).

Kingdom Heart 2, and Birth by Sleep, seem to imply that kingdom hearts takes the shape of the person who creates, or opens it. Thus the key blade war between light and darkness was about controlling who obtained kingdom hearts. I suppose this makes sense, since evil characters can use key blades as well, and key blades seem to react more to strength then to good or evil. That's probably why Rikku was able to temporarily steal Sora's sword in the first game.

 

[Asita]

I think it's mostly an abandoned concept. I talked about it a little bit in another comment above. The new "X-blade" seems to be an attempt to recycle that old concept. It's one blade made out of two souls, and it appears to be the new key to kingdom hearts. Hence it fills the role of the two kingdom keys. As I've stated above, the greek letter "X," pronounced "Chi," is often associated with Jesus. Hence, X-mas, "chi-mis," or "christ-mis." It's an interesting idea, but it's obvious that Square is just making up the story as they go. I feel like the symbolism has become needlessly confusing, much like the plot. To be fair, the Japanese often use christian symbolism in their works in the same way that we use norse symbolism in the Thor movies. What does the rainbow bridge in Marvel's Thor symbolize? Nothing. It just looks cool. We're just conditioned to believe that christian symbols are supposed to be meaningful because it's so sacred to our western culture. It doesn't have that significance in Japan, so it usually doesn't mean anything.

In fairness to them, the X-Blade was a very wholehearted return to the roots of the symbolism. The characters pronounce it the same as "keyblade", it's supposed to be unique and difficult to acquire, supposed to be the key to Heaven/Kingdom Hearts, and...well it's a pair of Kingdom Keys.

Too little too late, perhaps, but whoever conceived it was obviously trying very hard to reconcile the mythology suggested by the first game with the plot and developments of the subsequent games, down to the implication that the characters were simply confusing the mythology behind the keyblade(s) and that of the X-Blade

 

[Fox12]

I think it's mostly an abandoned concept. I talked about it a little bit in another comment above. The new "X-blade" seems to be an attempt to recycle that old concept. It's one blade made out of two souls, and it appears to be the new key to kingdom hearts. Hence it fills the role of the two kingdom keys. As I've stated above, the greek letter "X," pronounced "Chi," is often associated with Jesus. Hence, X-mas, "chi-mis," or "christ-mis." It's an interesting idea, but it's obvious that Square is just making up the story as they go. I feel like the symbolism has become needlessly confusing, much like the plot. To be fair, the Japanese often use christian symbolism in their works in the same way that we use norse symbolism in the Thor movies. What does the rainbow bridge in Marvel's Thor symbolize? Nothing. It just looks cool. We're just conditioned to believe that christian symbols are supposed to be meaningful because it's so sacred to our western culture. It doesn't have that significance in Japan, so it usually doesn't mean anything.

In fairness to them, the X-Blade was a very wholehearted return to the roots of the symbolism. The characters pronounce it the same as "keyblade", it's supposed to be unique and difficult to acquire, supposed to be the key to Heaven/Kingdom Hearts, and...well it's a pair of Kingdom Keys.

Too little too late, perhaps, but whoever conceived it was obviously trying very hard to reconcile the mythology suggested by the first game with the plot and developments of the subsequent games, down to the implication that the characters were simply confusing the mythology behind the keyblade(s) and that of the X-Blade

I think it was a good faith attempt, and I really appreciate that. The story doesn't seem to contradict itself, it's just more confusing then it needs to be. I'm just skeptical of how long they can continue this house of cards. At some point I'd like to feel like the world is going somewhere. I haven't felt that way since KH2. The third game may improve things, but I'm not sure modern square can do what Square did in the 90's and early 2000's.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Yeah I was done with the series after KH2. For one thing I didn't feel like buying all the different systems to play the spin-offs, but then I caught bits of the lore that had been thrown in in the spin-offs and thought it was convoluted as fuck. And one thing that really bugged my is that in the first game the Keyblade was introduced as this legendary item, and a key point they kept referring to it as THE Keyblade, not A Keyblade, but by the end of KH2 everyone and their dog is wielding one. Kinda diminishes the things legendary status there.

It also messes up the (somewhat goofy) symbolism of the keyblade. There were always two key blades. And what was Sora's key called? The kingdom key.

The keys to the kingdom were the two keys that opened up the gates to heaven in catholicism. Kingdom hearts was supposed to be heaven, and the two kingdom keys were supposed to be the way to open the gate. Then kh 2 came out, and all that got thrown out the window. Now everyone and their grandma gets a key blade.

I didn't know about the parallels to Catholicism, but I compare it to the Super Saiyan transformation in Dragon Ball Z. When it was first introduced it was supposed to be this thing of legend, not seen for a thousand years. Fast forward 2 arcs later and everyone and their dog is a Super Saiyan. I believe it was even lampshaded at one point.
And didn't they introduce a "keyblade war" or something in which entire armies had keyblades, and a "super keybllade" (I forget what it was called). I got most of this for the Lore in a Minute series on YouTube which isn't always accurate so I might not know what I'm talking about.

Yeah, that sums it up. That's the point where I groaned and shook my head. There are likely tens of thousands of keyblades in existence, according to Birth by Sleep, which was a total mess. They tried to remedy this somewhat by saying that there were two super unique keyblades called the X-blades, but it all sounded like a bunch of waffle. I miss the simplicity of the first game. You're DBZ comparison is completely on point. The key blade was supposed to be a special weapon, but now it just feels like any mass produced tool. Anyone whose actually supposed to be useful ends up with a key blade.

Kingdom Hearts, like Final Fantasy, has given way to the worst excesses of Square Enix. They just don't know how to tell stories anymore.

Were they called X-blades? I thought that might be it, but then I thought no, that can't be right. In any case, given that there was once thousands of Keyblade wielders battling it out over... something there might as well be a vending machine that dispenses them. I first noticed this when playing KH2 when Riku casually tosses Kairi a Keyblade like he was loaning her his pencil.

Much like a lot of these companies, Square-Enix has gotten much too big for it's britches and is motivated more by the desire to make money than by the desire to create anything meaningful.

Ugh. Square has to make everything confusing. The "X" in this case is referring to the greek letter "Chi."

It can be pronounced "cai" or "Key." It's often associated with Christ in classical thought. Hence X-mas. Actually pronounced "Chi-mis," or "christ-mas." So its written as greek letter "X", and then blade. X-blade, pronounced "cai-blade." It's one blade made out of two souls. I assume it's supposed to perform the same function as the original two key blades, but it's gotten just plain silly. I guess my liberal arts degree was good for something after all. I'm qualified to talk about the symbolism in a Square-Enix game : P

In Birth by Sleep the finale takes place in the Key Blade graveyard, where two large armies clashed. We see thousands of key blades lying around. Presumably this is where the others all come from. Furthermore, key blade masters are now a knighthood that got wiped out, like the jedi. They even have that seduced by the dark side thing going on. Originally the key blade master was supposed to be a chosen hero figure.

Oh, well that sounds less stupid. Although that could really get confusing because you'd have the keyblades and then the "Chi"-blade which are supposed to be pronounced the same way.

So they're stealing ideas from Star Wars? Ugh, I liked it better when it was just Sora was the chosen one, he wielded a legendary weapon, and he had to save the multiverse.

Birth by Sleep is literally just Revenge of the Sith. Terra is Anakin, his master is Obi-Wan or Yoda, and Xehanort is Palpatine. The only character I really liked was Aqua. She was actually pretty cool.

Really? Of all the Star Wars movies to copy, why that one? Why not New Hope?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

If nothing else, Kingdom Hearts 3 is hopefully putting an end to all this nonsense.

 

[Asita]

I think it was a good faith attempt, and I really appreciate that. The story doesn't seem to contradict itself, it's just more confusing then it needs to be. I'm just skeptical of how long they can continue this house of cards. At some point I'd like to feel like the world is going somewhere. I haven't felt that way since KH2. The third game may improve things, but I'm not sure modern square can do what Square did in the 90's and early 2000's.

No argument there. At bare minimum they should have left out young Xehanort and the related time paradox shenanigans...and, you know, not forgotten how to count to three.

 

[SD-Fiend]

I just now found this 3 hour long primer for the series that explains almost everything.

 

[CritialGaming]

I never got the chance to get into KH. I really want to jump in once the full series is available on PS4. I might get lost in the convolution, but hey, I can make donald duck get sliced apart by sephiroth right? Win-win for me there.

 

[Padwolf]

I adored KH1 and 2. Abolutely adored them. Adored them enough to buy console after goddamn handheld console just to play them. I have read up on everything I possibly can and still the story seems to have gaps in it and it is getting harder and harder to understand. Maybe I need to watch that 3 hour video that sums it all up.

But oh well we will never actually sodding know because KH3 is never coming out it's still a goddamn myth in my head. I'll never believe it's actually happening, even when I'm playing the damned thing.

 

[Mahorfeus]

The lore has gotten more than a little ridiculous, yeah. Honestly, so many midquels and prequels should not be necessary for the third game of a franchise to be intelligible. But they are. Which I appreciate, I guess - not one of the games is wholly redundant.

As for the pessimism toward KH3's eventual release, I think it's less justified than it was than when we had nothing more than a ~5 second clip of the game and a message assuring us that it was "in development." All of the pieces are lining up, and they at least had the good sense to rerelease everything on the PS4.

That being said, I do think the series has been very gradually moving forward (though to be honest, I don't care for some of the plot developments in KHDDD).

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I used to LOVE this series.

The first game is still phenomenal, back when things were...Wait for it "Simple and Clean". Everything else just overcomplicated things. It was still good, but it kept making me go "Come on, wrap it up already!"

KH2 was well put together even if it loses some of the gameplay uniqueness (no real class system to encourage replays, etc) and goofballs up the story by making keyblades no longer super-rare unique special things.

Birth By sleep was a blast, even if it ends each character's arc JUST as the gameplay really hits its stride, and the plot made a lot of the stupid stuff in KH2 feel a bit better.

The various other spinoffs were alright, if shaky.

But all the additional plot elements just kept piling on like the stench of someone who hasn't showered in months. Things kept getting more and more messy and requires players to have like 5 different game systems if they want the whole story (or wait like 8 years for them to port remakes to the PS3).

And then...Dream Drop Distance happened. That was the moment when the guitar hero HP bar for the series went "BOOOIIING" and I was done with it all.

Between the irritation of having to pause every 10 minutes during intense chase scenes to play 5 minutes of tamabotchi with some cutie patootie creatures just so I could get access to more skills really broke up the flow, to the very iffy Drop system, etc, I was just about fed up (although the wallrunning stuff was pretty damn neat). Then...The ending happened.

Paraphrased:

Spoiler

Hey, time travel is all over the series in secret! You're a Dream, he's in a dream, everything's a dream! People whose entire existences were forever erased are still somehow around in someone's mind! Voldemort horcruxes! Everything was predestined because of how time travel works in our series, so all your previous victories in other games were meant to happen and were thus meaningless, THIS is where the REAL game starts! Riku still has issues with his power of the Dark despite us wrapping up that plot element pretty much twice already! The sequel will have a magical Deus Ex Machina Book that will make everything right again and bring back everyone to life who poofed!

And while you're still reeling from all of that stuff, and everyone seems helpless in the face of the villains, do they wrap things up or turns things around by calling on an old plot point to make the villain go "oh, shit. Something I didn't see coming?" and give some sense that your army of checkov's guns means something?

NOPE. Random chance. Literal random chance saves the day. A shooting star thingy that has been previously established to take the user to a random place in the universe plops donald and goofy onto the main villain, disrupting everything. Cue lampshade with "were we supposed to do that?"

Villain's plot is disrupted, but he assures us that the REAL fight is about to begin!

...No. I don't care anymore. Any semblance of SENSE this series used to make was just thrown into a tornado, and then the writers used LITERAL RANDOM CHANCE to resolve the whole big conflict in the game.

With that, I was done.

I really loved the series, flaws and all, but the massive insanity dump that DDD dumped on us, PLUS the way they resolve the plot there just killed any interest I had in the story. I'm just done with it.