Things that you would...

Because it's a game. That's what you're playing it for?

I will say that I would like this for the upcoming KH3. Presumably it will have the most accessible characters yet. I would much rather have one big party than multiple stories to play. It would make more sense to have them all together because they are all working towards the same thing this time. I would love to be able to switch seamlessly between Sora or Riku for example, and keep playing the same game without having to go through all those cumbersome menus and game mechanics (a la BBS and DDD.)

I would have liked something for this for the previous games as well, but I can see how what they did makes sense for the story of each game.



edit: this reminds me of something else I would like changed.

A less annoying leveling up system. I hate having the level up each individual character separately for those games that apply. If the party system I mentioned above is indeed the one that is implemented or one similar, I would like each character to level up together and have access to the same pool of equipment, abilities, or whatever. Minus exclusives.

 

Then why not do it for Final Fantasy in Kingdom Hearts for just one world? I think it'd be more interesting. But that's just me and my opinion and I want to keep on topic.

I hope they don't find some convoluted way to put the characters levels back at one. I mean, Terra and Aqua maybe I would understand, but Sora and Riku? I don't really see that happening unless they have spent DDD and KHIII sipping sodas at Destiny Islands doing nothing. I understand KHII, but they can't constantly do that every game, can they? Make a higher cap instead. That and more things to learn. More magic, more skills, expand what you have.

 

That's going on the assumption that anyone who every played kh went to the highest level. Their increase in power from the beginning of the series should definitely be noted, but starting a character at a higher level serves no purpose if you're just going to raise the max level to account for the levels already obtained. It's understood that the leveling of one game is confined to the game itself, there's no need to carry it over into another game. Starting a character at level one doesn't harm anything, we know that the character will grow as the game goes on, so it makes more sense to start the character at level one in a game, because their level is only relative to the one game, not the entire series.

Leveling systems are for the player. It's a game mechanic that tells you how you have progressed in the game you are playing. It has no bearing on how strong the character actually is. Level one Sora in DDD is stronger than level 100 Sora in KH regardless of number.

 

It's partially expanded on in Dream Drop Distance, yes.

 

I just don't see the point in it, in KHII there was an actual very strong reason why Sora was at level one. Mostly from what happened in the activities in Castle Oblivion. Riku came very late in the game so he could've easily stayed where he was and maybe even leveled up. Now there seems to be no reason to put them back at level one, just like there's no reason to really do a tutorial unless you use a different character other than Sora/Riku because they KNOW how to fight and use the keyblade by now.

I'm not saying they should be at level 99, but maybe around level fifty or something, somewhere neutral in between. I see it sometimes lazy that they put them back at level one, especially since there is nothing that has really happened for it to be explained except maybe Sora got temporary memory loss or something.

I was thinking of a suggestion and I thought of one: Take one of the new cast of keyblade wielders, one of the thirteen, (again, haven't played DDD, so spare me here.) And do the tutorial and part of the game in their eyes until they meet up with Sora and the others. Sora then doesn't have to go back to level one and you can still learn the basics. You can actually expand on the skills and magic that can be learned from this instead of relearning everything over again with nothing new.

Yes, it might be strange for some people, but KHII started with Roxas and the first few hours just being him being in the simulated Twilight Town. Most of us had no idea what was going on in there, but it was thoroughly explained and for me, pretty damned sad at the end with a well-written scene. You don't need Sora to be the main focus for beginning levels to just have a reason to shove him back to level one with no skills and/or magic.

 

Even in recent games, Second Chance/Once More feel way too centralizing to the difficulty of the game. Either you have them, and nobody can beat you, or you don't, and a lot of bosses can flatten you in a matter of seconds. It seems as though this gives Squeenix license to be lazy with bosses' AI. It has improved with time but it's still pretty noticeable. Though whether it would be easier to remove the skills and incite the rage of thousands or to totally rewrite enemy AI on an engine-wide scale is quite another matter.

I will say that the KH3D secret boss, Julius, shows some promise in overcoming this. Its attack patterns are such that it can punish you for stopping to heal when you hit magic pixel, and it also has a move that can outright destroy your healing commands. I'd like to see the team put that kind of creativity to use more often in the series.

 

I'd make the Disney worlds more important. They were kind of important illusion wise in KH1 but other than that there have only been a few important ones over the course of the series. I'd make each Disney world to matter directly to the story rather than just illusion.

I'd also make it so that you don't have to read a lot of Nomura interviews just to understand the story or, at least, I'd put them in the game itself.