Dream Drop Distance After the Xehanort Saga, Kingdom Hearts should mature.

The original audience has grown and is more mature than before. What was originally a crossover experiment has become its own franchise and should develop deeper, darker themes. No more happy go lucky Sora. He needs to grow as a character and stop acting like a child. A veteran, wiser Sora would be a much more interesting character to play as.

It would also attract a lot of new fans. With Call Of Duty, a very mature game, raking in more sales each year, kids are going crazy to prove their manliness. What better way to do this than to have a, as stated before, veteran Sora with battle experienced, older Donald and Goofy helping you out? Darker colors would be required, more gore and blood, some swearing, and an actual weapon (it's called a keyblade). It would also help Disney's "kiddy" image.

If the formula proves to be unsuccessful, they can revert to the original style for the next saga. They wouldn't even have to spend a whole saga with this style. It could be a test game. It'd look similar to FF Versus XIII, but would still contain Disney characters (darker versions, of course).

Imagine this scenario: A character is walking down a battered, broken hallway in Disney Castle, covered with a brown cloak. Heartless come out, and not the wimpy kind. I'm talking Defenders, Wyverns, Neoshadows, Wizards, etc. The character takes off his cloak and its Sora, obviously older (around 21), with some facial stubble, a battle scar or two, a stern expression on his face (think similar to Kratos, just not as angry). He summons his new keyblade, a modified version of Kingdom Key that actually looks like a blade and starts fighting the Heartless. Of course, these graphics are all with the engine of Versus, giving it a sort of realistic touch to it. If Sora receives damage, it will be shown visibly. The same goes for magic: Fire would singe his clothes, while Blizzard would leave ice particles, etc.

Donald and Goofy come out and help when Sora is having difficulty and they are also serious and brooding. They would have their same voices but they would obviously be adjusted. Their clothes would look more modern, nothing wacky looking.

This is just Sora, Donald, and Goofy though. Riku would obviously go through some changes, having a style similar to Noctis.

I think it would provide a refreshing change of pace to an otherwise stale series. If the fans don't like it, then they can always revert. Not to mention, this darker style would draw in a lot of fans from the "Call Of Duty" crowd.

 

I don't know, I think they should kinda keep it the same way. Sora just is a happy-go-lucky guy, I don't think they should change that. If they did, it would kinda ruin the whole "Sora" character. Same with all of the others. Not too mention, you can find a lot of good symbolism stuff in games like these, and when they get around M, you just get things like real life, and it takes away all the cool hidden meanings in the game.

 

Wasn't Terra already like a 1/3 of the main character in BBS? I mean, I say 1/3 since you still had Aqua and Ven there.

 

You want dark and brutal KH? Play Drakengard. The actual kingdom hearts however, i think should stay generally how it is. Disney is meant for children so it'd be kind of hard to incorporate it into an M rated game. Also having sora not be happy go lucky would be out of character.

 

Personally, I would like Kingdom Hearts to get a little more Mature (Like Terra's story), but not too mature to go into an M Rating (That's just stupid, and besides, that's what Versus XIII is for~).

 

It could prove interesting...
We know Disney would never go through with it, though...
I think that they should keep it the same, though. Maybe if it was a bit more serious, and slight cursing, to reach a T for Teen level, then sure, I think it'd be amazing.
The Keyblade would have to stay - It's pretty much the main basis of the game.

 

The only thing I have to say to the person that started this thread is this: It took you long enough. I write KH FanFiction, and I've a far dose of KHIII spin-offs. They all have one thing in common: some maturity to them. Sora, Kairi(even if you don't want her as a playable charecter), Riku, and the rest of the cast are in need of some depth. So, yeah. Loving your intro. Love it.

 

I've been for this a very long time. I think adding maturity would add to the game; darker, perhaps some (brutal) deaths, more relationship.

 

I think some people are misunderstanding "dark." Courage the Cowardly Dog was dark. No one ever got maimed or tortured or raped or anything nasty. Tackling darker themes is something well within the reach of Kingdom Hearts, and Disney in general. They've done it before. I think it would be a smart move to aim for all audiences, not just kids; reward the people who've stuck by the series from the beginning while still catering to incoming crowds. It can be done.

At any rate, Kingdom Hearts is kind of already doing that. KHII took on some significantly stronger themes than the first game, with the Nobodies as its vehicle. What happens when a supposedly soulless creature dies? Is there anything left for them? It also threw Sora into a situation where his only means of combating the Heartless was playing right into his enemy's hands.

What I'd like to see in the next installment is for the darkness to be portrayed in a different light (no pun intended); to show, beyond a shadow of a doubt (again, no pun), that there are dark creatures who are as strong and noble as servants of the light. It's a bold move, to humanize one's enemies.

 

I'm with Machina on this. Let the series stay as it is. If it has to go any further into darkness (like Terra's story), then let it. But I would actually like an older Sora. BUT, he should be by himself. I think the game should stay like Re: CoM, you summon Donald and Goofy whenever you need them. The gameplay would stay the same as the other games in the series (button-mashing) but Donald and Goofy can be summoned at will.

Also, let the other people play CoD. We don't need to adapt the game just for them. If we did, we'd get to the point where it'd be like playing all of KHII after you've pressed Select.

 

Kingdom hearts should stay exactly as it is, BUT, I would love to actually laugh at the jokes, but they are way to childsh for me to do it. Like, They could talk in a more....no... in a less childsh way, yeah, the game wouldn't change and we would enjoy it more.

 

Hey, give 'em time. It's not like it's not incoming. People like to rant about how Sora paid Riku much more attention in KHII, perhaps conveniently forgetting that he got on his knees and begged for Kairi's safe release. (They also seem to forget how much of a jerk Saïx is for refusing, but that's another story.) My point being, it's in the stars, and the wait will only make it sweeter.

As of KHII it is pretty well broken, but ok. (Crossing my fingers for BbS combat mechanics to become the norm!!)

Oh god no. You hush, Nomura needs no such bad influence. What does need to happen, is Donald and Goofy need to play a more vital role beyond "Keep this one alive so he can heal you and swap this one out for someone who does more damage but dies just as easily." Their presence has been incidental, and the complexity of combat has suffered for it. In KHI, I used them as decoys; in II, as ammo. Quite literally in Goofy's case, as I kept him around solely for Knocksmash and Valor Form. He was useless if I couldn't do either of those things with him.

And button mashing should never, under any circumstances, be cited as a positive. Making a gamer feel wasteful for his creativity is depriving him of his single greatest asset. I say, at the very least, let's tighten the timing on attacks. Then maybe you have to think about each swing before you make it. BbS was on to something there, but it still stank of "Mash or be mashed" in a lot of ways.

Also, what say we just get rid of Second Chance/Once More altogether, hm? That way Squeenix stops using it as a crutch to make their bosses artificially harder, and maybe the players actually value their lifebar a little.

It wasn't already like that? I don't get the CoD comparison. That's a totally different kind of dark, one that would be confusing and disorienting in the KH setting. There is KH dark. It has existed since the beginning, it just needs to be drawn out and harnessed.

Look here. THIS BOAT RUNS ON HAPPY FACES. That is not going to change any time soon. Besides, "Whose side are you on? I just got slugged!" was one of the funniest things I've ever heard a VG character say.

 

I think people fail to notice that after the first Kingdom Hearts game, each one released afterwards is getting progressively darker. Aesthetically, the games have stayed pretty even throughout the series. Thematically, it's changed from a nostalgia trip through Disney worlds in search of missing friends to a thorough exploration of what it means to care about other people. Take Days and BBS for example, which both have darker themes and ultimately end on a sad note yet they mostly look like the other KH games.

L O L

Disney may be known for making sweet stories where good triumphs over evil and the prince gets the girl but they aren't afraid to get dark.

Why would we want people from the Call of Duty crowd? And who says that we have to change the tone of the series to actually attract them? A lot of people that I know who play Call of Duty don't mind playing games that look kiddy and sometimes even find them refreshing compared to all the grim darkness that you find in video games nowadays.

 

Really? You realize that you can button-mash through most of KH2 and be fine most of the time, right? Button-mashing combined with Cure and Second Chance/Once More makes the game way easier than it actually is. Sure some enemies would've required more finesse but they were few and far in between. Thankfully later games have gotten better at averting this by greatly improving the other magics and punishing you for button-mashing against most bosses now.