Kingdom Hearts by Cosmonaut

Okay before anyone flips, this isn't a rant. It's a decent video with a decent point. Remember criticism doesn't equal "herr herrr rant vid f*ck this and it's creator who spent hours making it" no. Give it a go, see if you agree, be mature.

Enjoy...I hope. :D

 

I've been sayin' it in the Discord for a while now, but Cosmo basically put all my thoughts from the past fifteen years into better words than I ever did in the seven I've been here. KH was another victim of the shift from Squaresoft's compellingly unique gameplay-storytelling mix to Square Enix's janky mechanics & cutscene hell. And yeah, Nomura's not cut out for this, but I don't blame him so much as the executive pressure you know must have been foisted on him to make KH into a series. He did his best under the circumstances, but it's become quite a different thing, which is disappointing for folks who liked where the first game was going.

 

Honestly I think Nomura himself made only two major mistakes. 1# He put too much behind the scenes. In-gam journals, interviews, f*cking canon concerts, etc. KH1 had a simple and understandable narrative, later games didn't, nothing important was in the game. Worse yet it was convoluted for the sake of "surprise" or just to be so.

2# He made too much important. I know he didn't intend for each title. I dont condone using interviews for lore facts anymore but I do think the development ones paint a picture. In a nutshell; Chain of Memories (OG GBA Ver), fan demand. Days, Nintendo's fault. Coded, Disney's fault. BBS obviously changed drastically from it's early trailers and "unbirths" on the PS2 to it's PSP version later.
Then things just went hog freakin wild with browser games, app games, remixes, movies and even a special, but canon, concert event. It just wasn't smart.

Extra is fine, if your forced to make outside things, fine but you dont try to tie it all together like it's some knot from a rejected boy scouts contest. Of course that probably ties back into Cosmonauts writing point.

Nomura isn't too grand a director I think, nor writer. Just look how well Amano handled Days compared to Nomura. If he had editors or people to keep him in check or fans to give actual criticisms it might be different.

 

He makes so valid criticism but the way I see it is that somethin being convoluted is not bad in itself if it was but I Did not make sense! no that would be something to be pissed about, we will see If nomura can answer all questions that are left in KH3, but I have to fully agree about his critic that some characters dont behave the way they should alltough its a long time that I played FF7 wasnt it that clouds emo personality was something he inveted because he though thats how a soldier behaves?

 

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Convolution definitely has to be done right, Kh is just a case of it not being so I think.

 

Well, there's a difference between convoluted and complicated. 'Convoluted' kind of implies that it didn't have to be that way, it just was for some reason. KH could have been complicated... but why? It was really fun when it was simple. If nothing else, it made the jump too quickly; it could've built up to a more complex narrative, but it just kinda retconned it in instead.

...Kinda. First off, I define 'emo' as 'whining loudly about trivial problems;' maybe that's not how everybody defines it, but frankly I think most people don't bother, they just use the word as an all-purpose "I don't like how this character expresses themselves" stamp. Usually for dudes, 'cuz I guess dudes can't talk about their problems or something.

Anyway, Cloud was never really emo; he was stand-offish and callous for about five minutes, and then he started trusting people and loosening up a bit. When he did become emotional, it was over, y'know, the death of loved ones or being possessed by an omnicidal maniac. I think you're allowed to get a little worked up at that point.

The point is, he was never really a brooder; that was Vincent who did that. So when they took Cloud's head and put it on Vincent's body, for some reason he started brooding a lot. I dunno how that works, you figure it'd be Vincent's head on Cloud's body that would do that. Maybe Vince gets a lot of indigestion or something.

 

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On the Cloud thing wasn't it once said the cameos in KH are more like reimaginings of those characters? Like tweaked design and backstory to fit them into the KHverse?
I never played FF7 to know the real Cloud but from what you and the video says it sounds like Nomura made an entirely new character rather than adapting him.

I was never big on Final Fantasy so I dont mind them being altered to be more adjusted to the KH series but I'm not sure if it's really okay to just 180 their characters if that's what he's doing. I could see how that would rub FF fans wrong real fast.

My biggest issue with FF in KH is how they've vanished as time goes on. To me they was just as much part of the unique world KH1 introduced. To see them vanish was like chopping off a limb if the series had them to me.