Rewriting the Story of Kingdom Hearts III [SPOILERS]

[Dagesh Lene 366]

Don't get me wrong.  I think that Kingdom Hearts III is an amazing game.  However, I also think that the story is messy.  It is poorly paced and includes plot elements that are either not properly explained or don't matter to the story at all and only serve to set up for the future of the series (or maybe both).  And so, using the power of hindsight, I have decided to rewrite the story of Kingdom Hearts III, while keeping as many story elements that it introduced as possible, into a story that I think has better pacing, explains things a bit better, and doesn't hint toward the future as heavily in order to spend more time on wrapping up the story of the Dark Seeker Saga.

Keep in mind, I don't think that I could necessarily write a better story than they did.  If I was tasked with writing the story for Kingdom Hearts III from scratch, it might end up being worse than the one we got (not that the one we got was bad; it was just messy).  I'm just using the ideas they came up with to tell a story that I think would flow better.  With that being said, I'm interested to hear what you guys think of my rewrite (and, just as a warning, it is a pretty lengthy rewrite).  How would you rewrite the story of Kingdom Hearts III?  Do you think the story is fine the way it is?

 

The game begins with the chess game between Young Eraqus and Young Xehanort.  This scene plays out almost exactly the same way, except they are in the Land of Departure instead of Scala ad Caelum and Young Xehanort does not mention the “lost masters”.

The dark pieces on the chessboard transition into the seekers of darkness in the Keyblade Graveyard.  They are each standing on one of the thirteen spires, but the thirteenth spire is empty.  One of the seekers of darkness (probably Xigbar) is criticizing Master Xehanort for falsely identifying Sora as the thirteenth seeker of darkness.  However, Master Xehanort hints that he mistook Sora for the thirteenth seeker of darkness because the thirteenth seeker of darkness is a part of Sora.

The “Face My Fears” opening plays.

In the Secret Forest, Kairi is learning how to use the Keyblade with Lea (Kairi is playable at this time, and this serves as the tutorial for the game, which replaces the part with Sora in the Station of Awakening and the Final World).  The scene when Kairi is writing to Sora follows, which transitions into Sora, Donald, and Goofy arriving at Olympus (since the ending of Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage- already showed Sora, Donald, and Goofy getting sent on their mission to Olympus, replaying those cutscenes in this game seems a bit unnecessary; plus, it is pretty easy for them to say something once they arrive at Olympus that explains why they traveled there).

All the events that happen in Olympus play out almost exactly the same way, except Pete and Maleficent don’t show up and Xigbar hints that the seekers of darkness are invading other worlds.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy return to the Mysterious Tower (which is a world that can be explored) and inform Master Yen Sid on what happened at Olympus (Riku and King Mickey don't show up at this time; in fact, their part of the story doesn't happen for a while).  Master Yen Sid tells them to explore other worlds to see if what Xigbar said was true, telling Sora that his heart will guide him to the worlds that need him.  He also hopes that exploring more worlds will help Sora regain his lost power.  However, before Sora, Donald, and Goofy set off of their journey, Master Yen Sid opens a path to Twilight Town (via a magical train, like in Kingdom Hearts II) so that they can follow up on a lead that could possibly help them bring Roxas back.  Master Yen Sid gives Sora his new clothes and Gummiphone before Sora departs with Donald and Goofy for Twilight Town.

All of the events that happen in Twilight Town play out almost exactly the same way.  Sora, Donald, and Goofy team up with Hayner, Pence, and Olette to see if they can find Roxas’ data in the data version of Twilight Town.  They also learn about the Lucky Emblems, run into Little Chef in the woods, who they find out is the chef of Scrooge McDuck’s new restaurant, after which they agree to help him find ingredients for his dishes, and are told about the Classic Kingdom minigames.  However, there is no fight against the Demon Tide, and instead of encountering Ansem and Xemnas, they encounter Pete and Maleficent who are trying to steal the data for the other Twilight Town.  After Pete and Maleficent fail to do so, they are told of the black box by one of the seekers of darkness (probably Xigbar), which makes them abandon their plans from stealing the World Data to finding the black box.  Sora, Donald, and Goofy also discover that Ienzo has traveled to Twilight Town in order to help research the data.  Unable to do anything more in Twilight Town until more information on Roxas’ data is found, Sora, Donald, and Goofy set off on their journey to explore other worlds and see if the seekers of darkness are indeed invading them.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy travel to Toy Box, Kingdom of Corona, and Arendelle (Arendelle is visited earlier in the game so that both of the worlds that have some of the “New Seven Hearts” in them are completed before the game’s halfway point).  All of the events that happen in each of these worlds play out almost exactly the same way, except they fight Buzz Lightyear when he gets controlled by darkness.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy return to Mysterious Tower and inform Master Yen Sid that the seekers of darkness are targeting the New Seven Hearts.  In order to keep the seekers of darkness from targeting more of the New Seven Hearts, Master Yen Sid tries to hasten the search for the remaining guardians of light.  However, the team at Twilight Town cannot be contacted, so Sora, Donald, and Goofy are sent to investigate.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy discover that the team at Twilight Town can’t be contacted because they are under attack from a Demon Tide.  They defeat the Demon Tide on top of the clock tower (more of Twilight Town can be explored), and save everyone.  It is then revealed that Ienzo and Pence have discovered that Roxas’ data can’t be found in the data version Twilight Town because there was never a data version of Roxas in that Twilight Town (only the real Roxas was ever in that Twilight Town).  Sora thinks that they are back to square one, but then Ienzo reveals that he had helped Chip and Dale decode Ansem the Wise’s data that had been hidden in Sora.  The data revealed that there is more than one heart inside Sora.  In fact, there are three hearts in total.  Assuming that one of these hearts had to be Roxas’ heart, Ienzo had brought Even (who is not a seeker of darkness) on board to help make more Replicas, one of which would be for Roxas’ heart.  However, Sora still needed to learn the power of waking, so, while Even went back to making Replicas, he left with Donald and Goofy to explore more worlds and hopefully awaken that power along the way.

Meanwhile, Master Yen Sid contacted Riku and King Mickey (who do not get new Keyblades) and informed them that the seekers of darkness were targeting the New Seven Hearts.  Riku and King Mickey search the Realm of Darkness for Aqua (Riku is playable at this time).  They had been searching for a while, but they felt like they were getting close.  However, they end up getting overpowered by an army of Heartless, after which they discover that Aqua has fallen to the darkness.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy travel to Monstropolis, the Caribbean, and San Fransokyo.  All of the events that happen in each of these worlds play out almost exactly the same way, except they fight Randall, encounter Pete and Maleficent in the Caribbean, which is when they discover that Pete and Maleficent are now searching for the black box, and encounter Riku Replica in San Fransokyo instead of Dark Riku.  Fortunately, it seems that the seekers of darkness have abandoned their search for the New Seven Hearts now that the heroes are making more progress in gathering the guardians of light.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy discover that all contact with Riku and King Mickey has been lost.  Sora follows his heart to Destiny Islands (which is a world that can be explored) and finds Aqua’s Keyblade.  He unlocks a door to the Realm of Darkness and arrives just in time.  Sora fights Anti-Aqua and defeats her, saving Aqua and bringing her back to the Realm of Light (after this, the Realm of Darkness can be revisited and explored).

While Sora, Donald, and Goofy were in Monstropolis, they learned from Vanitas that the second of the three hearts inside Sora is Ventus’ heart.  Because of this, Aqua takes Sora to Castle Oblivion, which she transforms back into the Land of Departure, so that he can help her wake Ventus up.  However, Sora still has not mastered the power of waking, but when Vanitas shows up and almost kills Aqua, Sora finally learns to master it and wakes Ventus up, who saves Aqua just in time.  Knowing that he doesn’t stand a chance against three Keyblade wielders, Vanitas retreats.

Now that Sora has mastered the power of waking, he travels to Twilight Town with Kairi (who has completed her training, along with Lea) to put both Roxas and Namine’s hearts in Replicas.  He also puts the mysterious third heart in a Replica, and as soon as the Replica wakes up, everyone remembers whose heart it is: Xion's.  However, Ansem and Xemnas arrive and kidnap her in order to use her as their thirteenth seeker of darkness.

The only one still missing is Terra, but since Master Xehanort now has his thirteen seekers of darkness, they could not afford to waste any more time.  So, Sora, Riku, Kairi, Lea, Roxas, Ventus, Aqua, King Mickey, Donald, and Goofy all prepared to leave for the Keyblade Graveyard the next day, not as seven guardians of light, but as ten guardians of light.  The scenes that show the groups of friends spending some time together before the fated clash are still shown, although some of them are different since Roxas, Namine, and Xion have all been returned by now and Riku Replica is a seeker of darkness instead of Dark Riku.

The next day, the ten guardians of light arrive at the Keyblade Graveyard.  However, Master Xehanort does not need ten guardians of light.  He only needs seven.  So, he unleashes a massive army of Heartless, Nobodies, and Unversed to fight the guardians of light.  Whoever survived would be the seven guardians of light.  The fight plays out the same way, except there are now three more phases to the fight.  For the second phase, Sora, Donald, and Goofy have to defeat an army of Demon Towers.  For the third phase, they have to fight the Demon Tide one last time, complete with a new tornado form that they didn't fight last time.  It ends with Sora using the light of the past to defeat the giant storm of darkness for the final phase.  However, even this isn’t enough to put an end to the army of darkness.  Right when all hope seems lost, Master Yen Sid appears and creates a corridor of light for the guardians of light to pass through.

As the guardians of light make their way toward the seekers of darkness, they encounter Pete and Maleficent.  The villains have tracked the black box to the Keyblade Graveyard and intend to find it.  King Mickey, Donald, and Goofy stay behind to fight Pete and Maleficent, which only leaves seven guardians of light to take on the thirteen seekers of darkness, just like Master Xehanort wanted.

The fated clash begins.  However, the guardians of light are struck down one by one.  The Lingering Will appears to help Aqua and Ventus (who have now discovered that Terra is one of the seekers of darkness) but even he cannot help them and gets struck down along with them.  Soon, only Sora, Riku, and Kairi remain.  Riku is struck down next, followed by Kairi, and Kairi’s death hurt Sora the most.  With this, the prophecy was fulfilled, darkness prevailed and the light expired.

At this point, we have a flashback to the chess game between Young Eraqus and Young Xehanort.  This is the scene that, in the original story for Kingdom Hearts III, plays right before Sora uses the power of waking to save everyone, and it plays out almost exactly the same way, except the scene ends right as Young Eraqus picks up the light piece that represents Sora saying, "My move, isn't it?"

Suddenly, the hearts of the fallen guardians of light appeared before Sora and encourage him to keep going, reminding Sora that they are always with him.  Their six hearts then enter Sora, giving him new strength.  Seeing this, Master Xehanort smiles.  Could this be what he wanted all along?

The newly powered Sora then jumps into the middle of the thirteen spires and defeats the seekers of darkness one by one as they each jumped down from their spire to fight him.  Soon, only Master Xehanort remains, but just like how Sora absorbed the hearts of the fallen guardians of light, Master Xehanort absorbs the hearts of the fallen seekers of darkness.  Sora and Master Xehanort then clash, which reforges the χ-Blade (the seven lights, who are now inside Sora, clashed with the thirteen darknesses, who are now inside Master Xehanort).

Master Xehanort then explains to Sora that he once thought that he had to summon Kingdom Hearts in order to start another Keyblade War, but now he realized that another Keyblade War was what was needed in order to summon Kingdom Hearts.  However, this did not change Master Xehanort’s plans.  He would now use the power of Kingdom Hearts to create the Next World, a World that was equal in light and darkness, and he would serve as a god of sorts that would make sure that the light and darkness remained in balance.

Donald and Goofy then appear to help Sora defeat Master Xehanort.  The final fight plays out almost exactly the same way, except instead of fighting on a roof in Scala ad Caelum, they fight on a tower of stone in the Keyblade Graveyard.  Also, during the first half of the fight, Master Xehanort occasionally uses the attack that he used in the fight against Ansem, Xemnas, and Young Xehanort when he surrounded the pillar with the fallen Keyblades and hurled them at Sora.

Once Master Xehanort is defeated, Sora uses the power of waking combined with the power of Kingdom Hearts to restore all of his friends, including Terra and Xion, who had both been seekers of darkness.  The rest of the scene that follows Master Xehanort’s defeat plays out almost exactly the same way, except after sealing Kingdom Hearts with the χ-Blade, Sora begins to fade away.  This was the cost of abusing the power of waking.  He had been warned this would happen, but he didn’t care.  He was just happy that he could save his friends.  Kairi takes Sora’s sacrifice the hardest, but Sora reminds her that their destinies are intertwined now (since they had shared a paopu fruit before the fated clash), which meant that they would see each other again someday.  The rest of the ending plays out almost exactly the same way, except instead of Namine waking up, Ansem the Wise returns home to Radiant Garden.

The epilogue and secret ending play out exactly the same way.

Some extra notes on the story:

• In addition to Scala ad Caelum, the Final World and the 100 Acre Wood are no longer worlds that can be visited
• In addition to Even, Demyx is no longer a seeker of darkness
• In addition to the lost masters, "Subject X" is no longer mentioned in the story, but both the lost masters and Subject X are mentioned in the Secret Reports

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Edited February 6, 2019 by Dagesh Lene

[The 13th moogle 12]

Cool I don't want to say I prefer this version......but I prefer this version

[Fates Chance XIII 307]

I like it! Especially the tutorial and the changes to Sora at the end.

[Dagesh Lene 366]

It seems that every time I edit this post, another "4" is added to the bottom.  Does anyone know why that is?  Is there a way to get rid of them?

[Byakuyaji 1]

Quote

Spoiler

While Sora, Donald, and Goofy were in Monstropolis, they learned from Vanitas that the second of the three hearts inside Sora is Ventus’ heart.  Because of this, Aqua takes Sora to Castle Oblivion, which she transforms back into the Land of Departure, so that he can help her wake Ventus up.  However, Sora still has not mastered the power of waking, but when Vanitas shows up and almost kills Aqua, Sora finally learns to master it and wakes Ventus up, who saves Aqua just in time.  Knowing that he doesn’t stand a chance against three Keyblade wielders, Vanitas retreats.

 

Spoiler

I don't think this should play out the way it already did.

I think Aqua's Rescue and saving Ventus happen way too close and they overshadow each other, i don't think Vanitas should give them the answer about where Ventus's heart is. Aqua should be saved much earlier, mid game. and for the rest of the game till she saved Ven she is looking for what happened to his heart and find a way to restore it. I don't think Aqua is so reckless as to unlock castle oblivion the way she did in kh3 just so that she can push ventus's shoulder a bit as an attempt to wake him. She's tried that before and locked him in a whole world, no way she would risk it.
the only reason Aqua does open it in kh3 is cause the plot knew Sora would go with her and the plot knew that Sora had Ven's heart, this completely undermined Aqua's character and her cautious protective nature since she didn't do any of this and risked Ven's life.



I'm also against Sora defeating all the seekers, i think we should fight some of the seekers at the end of each world as Sora but they dont die and jsut retreat and for the final world have each of the light guardians fight the org members we already fought but with us controlling each of them for each fight. (so we get to play as all of them for at least a fight).

then for the final few remaining we play as Sora who will be joined by other guardians (in rotation like from kh2 and ff characters during 1000 heartless battle)  until only MX is left who we fight along side DOnald and goofy

though i love the opening you suggested, no reason Sora should the choosing weapon part, roxas did it in 2. having kairi do it here would be great

[Dagesh Lene 366]

2 hours ago, Byakuyaji said:

  Hide contents

I don't think this should play out the way it already did.

I think Aqua's Rescue and saving Ventus happen way too close and they overshadow each other, i don't think Vanitas should give them the answer about where Ventus's heart is. Aqua should be saved much earlier, mid game. and for the rest of the game till she saved Ven she is looking for what happened to his heart and find a way to restore it. I don't think Aqua is so reckless as to unlock castle oblivion the way she did in kh3 just so that she can push ventus's shoulder a bit as an attempt to wake him. She's tried that before and locked him in a whole world, no way she would risk it.
the only reason Aqua does open it in kh3 is cause the plot knew Sora would go with her and the plot knew that Sora had Ven's heart, this completely undermined Aqua's character and her cautious protective nature since she didn't do any of this and risked Ven's life.



I'm also against Sora defeating all the seekers, i think we should fight some of the seekers at the end of each world as Sora but they dont die and jsut retreat and for the final world have each of the light guardians fight the org members we already fought but with us controlling each of them for each fight. (so we get to play as all of them for at least a fight).

then for the final few remaining we play as Sora who will be joined by other guardians (in rotation like from kh2 and ff characters during 1000 heartless battle)  until only MX is left who we fight along side DOnald and goofy

though i love the opening you suggested, no reason Sora should the choosing weapon part, roxas did it in 2. having kairi do it here would be great

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You bring up some good points.  The reason I still had Aqua and Ventus saved so close to each other was that I didn't know what Aqua would be doing in the time between her rescue and Ventus' rescue.  However, I think you come up with a good way to fill her time until Ventus is actually saved.  I think it makes sense that she would immediately want to return to Ventus since that is what she has wanted to do since the end of Birth by Sleep.  I did try to change it up a bit so that her actions made more sense though.  I had her take Sora with her because she finds out that Ventus' heart is inside his and thinks that taking him to Ventus could wake Ventus up.

You also bring up a good way to handle the fights against the seekers of darkness.  However, the reason why I had it happen the way that I did is so that the prophecy of the darkness prevailing over the light would still be fulfilled.  By having the seekers of darkness strike down all of the guardians of light except Sora and Sora suddenly make a miraculous comeback, it parallels what happened in the chess game against Young Eraqus and Young Xehanort.  I didn't specify this in my original post, but I would intend on having the other guardians of light receive their moment in the spotlight while they are fighting the army of darkness shortly after they arrive at the Keyblade Graveyard by having them team up with Sora on rotation.

That's why I rewrote it the way that I did, but I think that your changes are great too.