Kingdom Hearts 3: Get Norted

[I am nobody]

I'm not much of a Disney fan, so the series was never meant for me, but I can at least appreciate the series for leading to KH plot summary videos. Some of those are incredible.

[X-3]

Let us take a moment to appreciate the fact that, in a series filled with hansem characters with luscious hair, the main villain is some bald guy. And he's okay with that.

[Apollo the Just]

I don't know anything about Kingdom Hearts but I have spent my entire life thinking the name was Xenohart and TIL it's Xehanort.

[Marilink]

yeah xehanort is an awful name

btw, everyone should watch this video

[Booyakasha]

...I feel like the creators really love Disney, and at the same time don't understand what makes Disney great.

Like, Disney plays really fast and loose. It's fun, take-it-easy biz, man. 'Wanna Be Like You', right. Fun monkey dance-party. Square Enix is very much not a fun monkey dance-party kind of company. They take themselves very, very seriously. And so there's a severe tonal shift between 'Aladdin' and FF7, man. To me, Kingdom Hearts feels as tone-deaf as that damn silly pony version of FF6, you know? 'Pony Fantasy 6' is funny to laugh at, I'll watch someone tear it to shreds (watched DawnSomewhere's whole fifty-part rakin-it-over-the-coals letsplay a few times over), but I'll be dipped if I'd pay for a copy.

Kingdom Hearts sucks.

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

The fact that they just retell the Disney events but with new characters involved (which doesn't affect the events) comes off as kinda lazy to me, it always has. They took that to a new level in the spinoffs by reusing the same worlds and events multiple times.

Still, there's a charm to the main series. I think Nintendo and Square or Nintendo and Disney would fit better together. Maybe all three. Nintendo seamlessly blends the serious and whimsical stuff, so I think it would work.

[steeze]

I guess you could argue that they are using the same events multiple times but I don't think it's enough of the "same" to be considered the same exact story being told. The introduction of Sora Donald and Goofy make these stories change. The outcome would be impossible to change because they're supposed to be based on the movies...how would they do that differently? I think they introduced new elements to old elements and allowed players to be at the center of the classic Disney movies.

Yeah, I must have missed the fun monkey dance party while Bambi's mom was being shot dead and Mouffasa was being trampled to death in front of his son while we were all sobbing, watching the first few minutes of "Up". Those are just the first things that came to mind. It's good that there's a tonal shift between Aladdin and FF7 because they have literally no interaction with each other in any of the games. Cloud is placed in Olympus fighting through the tournaments in the hopes that Hades will show him the way to Sephiroth. Revenge being the two ways they blend Hades and Cloud characters together into the game. Hades wants to kill Hercules, Cloud wants to kill Sephiroth. In the second game, he's in Hollow Bastion which is not a Disney world and he fights Sephiroth.

Final Fantasy or pretty much any Square Enix game usually places you in the shoes of a hero or a cast of heroes who has to fight to defeat some sort of powerful enemy. Usually within large, sprawling worlds packed with interesting settings and awesome music. When you finally get to the end of the game you always win and defeat the big bad guy who's causing all the trouble.

Almost every Disney movie can be comparatively broken down in a similar respect. For example, Mulan. She finds Mushu. Wants to prove her worth and fight for her country. Gets terrorized by Shan Yu. All the while there is music and songs being played. Shan Yu burns a village to the ground and there's a little girl who is killed in the fire. Mulan blows up Shan-Yu with a firework. Ya know what I'm sayin?

[X-3]

As an outsider looking in, the fact that KH takes itself so seriously looks like part of the appeal, because in KH's case it's a completely insane psuedo-sci fi story. Add in Disney and you get stuff like this. (spoilers for the Toy Story world in KH3)

And, to be fair to SE and KH, I don't think their story structure (for Final Fantasy at least) is all that dissimilar to Disney's. You go from Happy* Fun Times to Hero's Darkest Hour to the Last Minute Comeback.

*does not actually need to be happy, but generally the protagonist will be in an advantageous position of some sort

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

As an outsider looking in, the fact that KH takes itself so seriously looks like part of the appeal, because in KH's case it's a completely insane psuedo-sci fi story. Add in Disney and you get stuff like this. (spoilers for the Toy Story world in KH3)

And, to be fair to SE and KH, I don't think their story structure (for Final Fantasy at least) is all that dissimilar to Disney's. You go from Happy* Fun Times to Hero's Darkest Hour to the Last Minute Comeback.

*does not actually need to be happy, but generally the protagonist will be in an advantageous position of some sort

Not really. Final Fantasy 2, 4, 6, and 10 particularly stand out as not starting out happy nor advantageous for the protagonist. I mean, unless you count the first few minutes in the opening cutscene of FFX where Tidus is playing Blitzball before the city is annihilated.

[X-3]

Maybe 'advantageous' isn't the right world, but all of those stories have a significant "we can fight back, everything is going to be alright" component to them before things get really dire.

[I am nobody]

Maybe you're referring to something more specific, but that could apply to pretty much every story ever written. Relatively happy times to darkest hour to comeback (or failure) is the archetypal plot arc. I mean, The Epic of Gilgamesh does that.

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

Maybe 'advantageous' isn't the right world, but all of those stories have a significant "we can fight back, everything is going to be alright" component to them before things get really dire.

I see. Well, FF1 definitely fits that. I'm not sure the ones I listed do...maybe FF2? It had half of that at least, the "we can fight back" part.

[steeze]

For the haterz

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/kingd ... n=homepage

For the record. Square and Disney have QUITE a lot of flavor. No blandness detected.

[Marilink]

reminder that this video exists

can't wait for the KH3 update

[I am nobody]

dammit ML, now I want to watch the whole series

WHO ELSE WILL I HAVE ICE CREAM WITH

[steeze]

I'm hungover right now and that video brought me back from the dead.