A Hollow Remembrance: The Legacy of Final Fantasy In Kingdom Hearts

[2 quid is good 2,209]

2 minutes ago, The Great Fifth said:

But when I'm not using them, I feel a bit sad, uncomfortable and awkward. 

This is the crux of it for me personally. You made a lot of good points that I agreed with but this is the best summary.

Sure, FF is *not necessary*, but if we're going down that route, Disney, whilst present, has contributed less to the story than FF. Its just more than a bit disappointing that many fans are so quick to agree and defend this decision.

[Novayon 192]

55 minutes ago, The Great Fifth said:

Look, I'm not gonna beat around the bush. The FF characters are not necessary to KH3. The plot could, and most likely will, work out just fine without them. 

But why do we only need things that are necessary? The Cloud subplot in KH1 wasn't necessary. His story with Tifa and Sephiroth weren't necessary. The inclusion of Seifer, Raijin, Fuujin, Setzer and Vivi in Twilight Town wasn't necessary. But it was still welcomed. They had their cool moments, they had some connection to Sora, and they all had their own little arcs that felt satisfying.

I do get a little tired of people saying they aren't necessary to the game so they shouldn't be there. They also claim that there wouldn't be space for them with all the KH-related stuff going on. If that's the case, why is there space to let Elsa have her little sing along session? Or any of the Disney plots? We should just be getting the Xehanort plot done as fast as possible with no extras, clearly.

[Estoria#4001 19]

8 minutes ago, 2 quid is good said:

Sure, FF is *not necessary*, but if we're going down that route, Disney, whilst present, has contributed less to the story than FF. It's just more than a bit disappointing that many fans are so quick to agree and defend this decision.

Tell me about it. Like I said in my post, there are many fans out there that try to justify the lack of FF characters at any moment, saying that they weren't that important to begin it - a sentiment I really disagree with.

It makes me afraid because there's a risk that Nomura will see that and just think people never cared about FF in the first place, and thus he might be inclined to never bring any of them back again.

Let's hope that's not the case.

[SweetYetSalty 330]

30 minutes ago, Novayon said:

I do get a little tired of people saying they aren't necessary to the game so they shouldn't be there. They also claim that there wouldn't be space for them with all the KH-related stuff going on. If that's the case, why is there space to let Elsa have her little sing along session? Or any of the Disney plots? We should just be getting the Xehanort plot done as fast as possible with no extras, clearly.

The Disney plots this time around seem to centered around Xehanort's plot. Elsa could be a pure light which makes her a target for Larxene to catch. That's quite important to the plot. But there is a answer for Final Fantasy characters. Have them do what Auron did, and be a surprise appearance as a party member in a world or two.

Frozen doesn't have Anna or Elsa as a party member? Stick a Final Fantasy character in there who want's to help. Or just have them as helpful NPC's. Have Leon, Yuffie, Aerith, and Cid be tutorial characters for Sora in the early half of the game, and show him all the battle controls. It would be simple.

[Novayon 192]

11 minutes ago, SweetYetSalty said:

The Disney plots this time around seem to centered around Xehanort's plot. Elsa could be a pure light which makes her a target for Larxene to catch. That's quite important to the plot. But there is a answer for Final Fantasy characters. Have them do what Auron did, and be a surprise appearance as a party member in a world or two.

Frozen doesn't have Anna or Elsa as a party member? Stick a Final Fantasy character in there who want's to help. Or just have them as helpful NPC's. Have Leon, Yuffie, Aerith, and Cid be tutorial characters for Sora in the early half of the game, and show him all the battle controls. It would be simple.

True, the Disney plots are more important then they were in say, KH2. That's good. But as you said there are plenty of ways to incorporate FF characters without taking away from the main plot or the Disney stuff. Even small cameos are better than nothing. 

The move towards a Disney focus is evident with Olympus being the tutorial world. I don't have a problem with that, I prefer the Disney part to FF actually. But the FF mentor characters being left behind, yet Hercules is allowed to stay? Doesn't sit right with me.

[ienzo628 548]

5 hours ago, Novayon said:

True, the Disney plots are more important then they were in say, KH2. That's good. But as you said there are plenty of ways to incorporate FF characters without taking away from the main plot or the Disney stuff. Even small cameos are better than nothing. 

The move towards a Disney focus is evident with Olympus being the tutorial world. I don't have a problem with that, I prefer the Disney part to FF actually. But the FF mentor characters being left behind, yet Hercules is allowed to stay? Doesn't sit right with me.

I mean, we have had FF cameos, it's just been with Moogles though.

[Dustin Lübbers 933]

There were final Fantasy characters? 

Jokes aside part of this is due to the fact that nomura cant write a normal story even if his life depends on it

[Karxrida 154]

On 1/10/2019 at 4:53 AM, 2 quid is good said:

To this day, Kingdom Hearts as a whole is still described by the short sentence that was used to market it way back in 2002.

“Kingdom Hearts is a Final Fantasy x Disney crossover”

This has never been a totally accurate descriptor, honestly. Kingdom Hearts is more like a Final Fantasy-esque JRPG put through a Disney filter.

 

Regarding the general topic: The franchise has gotten to the point where Square probably feels like it doesn't need to rely on FF cameos to support the games. It sucks, obviously, but the narrative is already kind of bloated and needs focus.

 

10 minutes ago, Dustin Lübbers said:

Jokes aside part of this is due to the fact that nomura cant write a normal story even if his life depends on it

The original game is a pretty bog-standard RPG narrative.

[2 quid is good 2,209]

39 minutes ago, Karxrida said:

Regarding the general topic: The franchise has gotten to the point where Square probably feels like it doesn't need to rely on FF cameos to support the games. It sucks, obviously, but the narrative is already kind of bloated and needs focus. 

I've addressed this issue a lot, as have others in this topic, but really the whole crux of it is that the FF cameos didn't just support the game but were weaved into the wider narrative. The Disney worlds up until now have been wallpapers at best, except for KH1 probably.

It wouldn't take away from anything the original plot has to offer by making radiant garden available, and ending the small arcs of the characters through the game. Unfortunately I doubt we will ever see this happen now.

[ienzo628 548]

28 minutes ago, 2 quid is good said:

I've addressed this issue a lot, as have others in this topic, but really the whole crux of it is that the FF cameos didn't just support the game but were weaved into the wider narrative. The Disney worlds up until now have been wallpapers at best, except for KH1 probably.

It wouldn't take away from anything the original plot has to offer by making radiant garden available, and ending the small arcs of the characters through the game. Unfortunately I doubt we will ever see this happen now.

It's kind of a shame.

[AwesomeKHfan 1,250]

I wanna point out before I will go dark again that Kingdom Hearts was my first introduction to the Final Fantasy franchise and I have been waiting to see Leon and the others again for 12 years now or so. If Nomura doesn't want them in the game I will have to deal with that BUT Final Fantasy characters are part of the brand/identity of the franchise so excluding them IF that happens is a strange creative decision.

I would love to see the Restoration Committee interact with former members of the Organization and the REAL Ansem it would be a wasted oppertunity but eh if it doesn't effect the story in any meaningful way than no... Still though:(

[Tyranto Rex 277]

It kinda reeks of lazyness to me to be honest . I really don't like the "they're not needed" arguement either, cause you could make that argument with a lot of things that are already in KH3, but they thought of some ways to include them anyway. Heck, some of the original characters are not really needed, but with things like the time traveling plot made them needed anyway. We did not really need like at least half of the original organization come back but since people like them alot they found a way to include them. Heck, characters like Axel were supposed to stay dead but came back cause he was a fan favorite. Whether you see it as contrived or not there are ways to make characters "needed" and heck Kingdom Hearts does not shy away from being contrived, especally recently. It would not hurt to have a few more. It's really not that hard either, like mentioned they could of had some as party members like Auron in KH2.

As a person that has never played Final Fantasy yet and as such much more invested in the Disney side than the Final Fantasy side, I can understand everyone's irritation and am quite irritated myself cause I know if it was the other way around with Disney being barely present I would be pretty angry to say the least.

(I also hate when people criticize these things and people claim they are not real fans and they don't care about the original characters enough or something. Like you can care about more than one thing and you can still love the franchise while criticizing it's many faults. I'm still super excited for this game and I'm sure I'll still enjoy it a lot, but there are a lot of things that are a bit of a downer)