I love the subtle callbacks in these games and I wanted to start a thread to see if anybody had caught some that I haven't.

The entire Dive to Heart in the tutorial mimics KH1's opening almost to a T with Sora's gestures.  The only major differences are that Riku (when we see him in front of the wave) is replaced by a bright orb of light, and when Sora reaches the surface of the water, he is encountered by Kairi in KH1, whereas he sees the mysterious water Darkside in her place in KH3 (Kairi's name means water remember).  I think this is Kairi's heart after she is struck down by Xehanort.  Since she cannot produce a heartless, is why it is made of water instead of darkness.  I can't take credit for this theory but I can't recall where I read it before either.

Also the whole "hunting the lich to retrieve your friend's hearts"  is definitely a callback to the world terminus area of End of the World in KH1.  Same music, same idea.

 

KH1 was my first Kingdom Hearts game when I was only 10 years old (25 now) and I've been in love with the series ever since.  I beat it with my best friend who I don't get to see anymore.  I remember when we finally beat Ansem after probably a hundred tries we were so overwhelmed with joy that I'm pretty sure we cried lol. It holds a special place in my heart and is my favorite game in the series, from a narrative standpoint (game play is a little outdated obviously).  So all of the little KH1 callbacks really made this game special to me, and shows that they still care about the OG fans from back in the days of their humble beginnings.

Sorry for the scatterbrained post, it's my first one on the forum.  I tend to ramble lol.

We all have storys like that and it always makes me happy to hear them thanks for sharing

On 5/22/2019 at 5:21 AM, Dustin Lübbers said:

We all have storys like that and it always makes me happy to hear them thanks for sharing

I love to hear people express when and why they fell in love with the series.  I don't know anyone IRL who plays these games so it's nice to talk about.

 

I noticed another callback as well.  Jiminy says multiple times when chasing the Lich in Olympus "don't worry about the small fry, find the leader"  which is exactly what Leon says in KH1 to Sora when they get attacked by heartless in the hotel in Traverse Town early in the game.  That whole section seems to be riddled with callbacks.  Pretty interesting.

Edited May 25, 20196 yr by JPansullo7

7 hours ago, JPansullo7 said:

I love to hear people express when and why they fell in love with the series.  I don't know anyone IRL who plays these games so it's nice to talk about.

 

I noticed another callback as well.  Jiminy says multiple times when chasing the Lich in Olympus "don't worry about the small fry, find the leader"  which is exactly what Leon says in KH1 to Sora when they get attacked by heartless in the hotel in Traverse Town early in the game.  That whole section seems to be riddled with callbacks.  Pretty interesting.

Yea i noticed that to and than made me a bit sad because i remembered the missing FF characters in the game

For me one of my favorite things was the Donald and Goofy are the ones to join Sora for the final fight because KH1 started with these three teaming up and it felt amazing to see them team up for the last battle

I did kinda hate that Xehanort got off easy though

23 hours ago, Col.Random said:

For me one of my favorite things was the Donald and Goofy are the ones to join Sora for the final fight because KH1 started with these three teaming up and it felt amazing to see them team up for the last battle

I did kinda hate that Xehanort got off easy though

Me too.  I was a huge fan of the dialogue between those 3, and Donald roasting Sora all game was hilarious.  I know some people wanted Riku to join the fight like in KH2, but Donald and Goofy felt more appropriate.  It was certainly lacking in interactions between some of the other characters, but at least they handled SDG well.