So it is well known that both Kingdom Hearts and Metal Gear series both have the most convoluted plot in video game history. But which one do you personally find to have a more convoluted or better plot?

Well I heard Metal Gear has a really interesting plot... Considering I never played any of the games I'm sure they're equal to KH.

Metal Gear games are typically written by Kojima correct? The Kingdom Hearts games generally have different writers.

Well Metal Gears time line is so much more complicated then Kingdom Hearts given the fact that MGS3 is technically the first events of the series and then two games later it's Ground Zeroes and Phantom Pain, but it all makes scenes if you play the games in order of release date and not actually in order of the timeline, that can be said about Kingdom Hearts as well.

They're both really not all that hard to understand, though I'd say it's probably KH that has more convolution solely because time travel. In terms of which I find better, I can't really say. I grew up with KH and love it's plot, but love MGS's even after only having played the games a few months back.

Simply by virtue of being around since the 80s and undergoing constant retconning, I'd say Metal Gear. Doesn't help that MGS games especially tend to be really slow burns so it's easy to lose track of the story. KH games tend to be too, but they're a lot easier to blast through.

So it is well known that both Kingdom Hearts and Metal Gear series both have the most convoluted plot in video game history. But which one do you personally find to have a more convoluted or better plot?

Metal Gear has the better plot because not only Kojima made it so it'd be coherent and understandable despite all the technobable with the nanomachines and all the political and historical knowledge you might need to have,but he also fleshed out the characters and developed them.......CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT NOMURA WHY CAN'T YOU DO IT(Don't tell me character development is overrated cuz that's basic writing 101 for any narrative focused showgame)

 

I'd add one more option of a game that has a better plot than the entire KH series but not because of convolution but because it tackles the same themes from KH in a much better way but I'll save that for later cuz I'm sure some people out there are waiting to quote my post and call me a hater

Edited August 8, 201510 yr by Smash Mega Koopa

Metal Gear. Why? "Nano machines, son!"

Metal Gear has the better plot because not only Kojima made it so it'd be coherent and understandable despite all the technobable with the nanomachines and all the political and historical knowledge you might need to have,but he also fleshed out the characters and developed them.......CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT NOMURA WHY CAN'T YOU DO IT(Don't tell me character development is overrated cuz that's basic writing 101 for any narrative focused showgame)

 

I'd add one more option of a game that has a better plot than the entire KH series but not because of convolution but because it tackles the same themes from KH in a much better way but I'll save that for later cuz I'm sure some people out there are waiting to quote my post and call me a hater

 

Nomura doesn't actually write the games.

Before DDD, I'd say they'd be neck-and-neck at the very least, with MGS possibly topping out. After DDD though, it's no contest, KH wins in that regard. Even MGS hasn't actually cracked into time travel. (Excluding the non-canon Raiden DLC in Ground Zeroes, for obvious reasons)

Metal Gear has the better plot because not only Kojima made it so it'd be coherent and understandable despite all the technobable with the nanomachines and all the political and historical knowledge you might need to have,but he also fleshed out the characters and developed them.......CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT NOMURA WHY CAN'T YOU DO IT(Don't tell me character development is overrated cuz that's basic writing 101 for any narrative focused showgame)I'd add one more option of a game that has a better plot than the entire KH series but not because of convolution but because it tackles the same themes from KH in a much better way but I'll save that for later cuz I'm sure some people out there are waiting to quote my post and call me a hater

This is the same man who retconned Dr. Clark's gender without any explanation at all, that Dr. Madnar survived the events of Metal Gear 2 despite it being made pretty clear that Snake killed him, establishing a quick relationship between Raiden & Colonel Campbell in MGS4 despite them never having actually met in MGS2 (Raiden was just talking to an artificial intelligence pretending to be the Colonel), along with tons of other little retcons and things Kojima changed seemingly on a whim throughout the series.I do agree though that it is more understandable than KH's overall plot and the character development is handled better in most cases. 'Better' is subjective and I wouldn't really call either MGS or KH's overall story 'better' than the other, but MGS' is definitely handled better as far as coherency is concerned...though that's not really saying anything because both are mindf*cks in most cases. (I still haven't gotten over how the dream worlds actually work in DDD) Also keeping in mind that, with DDD, Square purposefully wanted to make it as convoluted as possible on purpose.

Edited August 8, 201510 yr by Kaweebo

Convoluted OR better? You speak as though they aren't the same thing, lol. X)

Before DDD, I'd say they'd be neck-and-neck at the very least, with MGS possibly topping out. After DDD though, it's no contest, KH wins in that regard. Even MGS hasn't actually cracked into time travel. (Excluding the non-canon Raiden DLC in Ground Zeroes, for obvious reasons)

 

 

 

Hah, don't make me laugh. This is the same man who retconned Dr. Clark's gender without any explanation at all, that Dr. Madnar survived the events of Metal Gear 2 despite it being made pretty clear that Snake killed him, establishing a quick relationship between Raiden & Colonel Campbell in MGS4 despite them never having actually met in MGS2 (Raiden was just talking to an artificial intelligence pretending to be the Colonel), along with tons of other little retcons and things Kojima changed seemingly on a whim throughout the series.

 

I do agree though that it is more understandable than KH's overall plot and the character development is handled better in most cases. 'Better' is subjective and I wouldn't really call either MGS or KH's overall story 'better' than the other, but MGS' is definitely handled better as far as coherency is concerned...though that's not really saying anything because both are mindf*cks in most cases. (I still haven't gotten over how the dream worlds actually work in DDD) Also keeping in mind that, with DDD, Square purposefully wanted to make it as convoluted as possible on purpose.

I never said MGS's plot was perfect by any means and it's still ain't my favorite story in a video game(My favorite is Persona 4)All I'm saying is it was much better handled than KH and it didn't just add shit for the sake of adding shit like what Nomura does all the time

 

 

Just because Square made it purposefully convoluted doesn't automatically make it good,sure complex plots can be done right and be thought-provoking and insightful(After all I'm a fan of Evangelion) but what KH did is not the way to do it at all.

 

Anywho this is just my opinion and it's mostly subjective and it's not something you have to agree with 

Nomura doesn't actually write the games.

He's the director though and he has the final say of what goes in and what goes out and he's to blame for most of this as Nojima and everyone in the team in charge of the scenario and direction for this series

I never said MGS's plot was perfect by any means and it's still ain't my favorite story in a video game(My favorite is Persona 4)All I'm saying is it was much better handled than KH and it didn't just add shit for the sake of adding shit like what Nomura does all the time

 

 

Just because Square made it purposefully convoluted doesn't automatically make it good,sure complex plots can be done right and be thought-provoking and insightful(After all I'm a fan of Evangelion) but what KH did is not the way to do it at all.

 

Anywho this is just my opinion and it's mostly subjective and it's not something you have to agree with 

He's the director though and he has the final say of what goes in and what goes out and he's to blame for most of this as Nojima and everyone in the team in charge of the scenario and direction for this series

 

Nojima hasn't had anything to do with a KH game since KH2.

Nojima hasn't had anything to do with a KH game since KH2.

But if I remember correctly he's been credited for most games so if it wasn't Nomura or him then who?

But if I remember correctly he's been credited for most games so if it wasn't Nomura or him then who?

 

It depends on the game. Birth by Sleep and KH3D had a new scenario writer. 

I heard a theory about this once that the difference between the two series is that Kojima had a vision for the entire story of MGS, and is basically filling up the holes with each game, while Nomura started with KH1, expanded on that and retconned whatever didn't make sense later. And while I don't necessarily find this to be completely true, I think it may have some merit.

 

Of course, KH has multiple writers, so comparing the ideas of one slightly crazy guy with a team of writers with differing opinions might just be useless.

Metal Gear and Kingdom Hearts aren't comparable. Sure, they have convoluted plot lines, but what else is there? It's like comparing cars to airplanes. You just don't.

Metal Gear. Easy. KH's plot can just be ugh. 

Metal Gear games end with answers to questions that were previously asked in earlier games. Kingdom Hearts leaves more questions than answers. Therefore, both are equally convoluted, but Metal Gear/Kojima do a better job of making things clear.

Metal Gear has at least one foot in reality and science whereas KH explains most of it's plot points through magic, which inherently makes less sense to me.

As far as I'm concerned they're both equally great for similar and differing reasons. For one thing, they both have pretty long drawn out storylines that require quite a lot of looking back and fact checking. And I LOVE THAT! I don't care how many of you guys say Kingdom Hearts has gotten terrible in terms of how convoluted it is, I'm eating it up like popcorn right now. The fact that it's gotten so complicated is exactly what makes the series so enticing to me. It might have a few rough spots that need to be worked on, and certainly some plot holes that need repairing along the way, but the more crazy it gets, the more at home it feels for me. As with Metal Gear, it's complicated and convoluted storyline is exactly the reason I wanted to get on board in the first place (well that and my friend kept egging me on that the gameplay was really fun). And sure enough, just like Kingdom Hearts, both the gameplay and the confusing story has been what cemented my love for the Metal Gear franchise...which was unfortunately timed as now I get to know the pain of seeing how terrible Konami is handling things after JUST getting caught up in the series. In a sense, I see no point in comparing the two, as they aren't tackling the same things, they just happen to be going about them in a similar manner. The only notable similarity when it comes to their plots is how they are handled over time. Both started out relatively straightforward, then by the time they got to their significant sequels, KH2 and MGS2 (MG2 was still easy enough to follow, and MGS was probably on par with the first KH1 in terms of details you have to pay attention to) they started to expand their lore and the reach of their story a little more. Pretty soon they started branching out into more titles that furthered the story even more, with origin stories, perspectives of a different character, differing points in time, in a sense the series' were going all over the place. The only real significant difference between how they handled that though was in how the focus was divided. With Kingdom Hearts the timeline is following the path of just one journey, or arguably the goals of one antagonist, so you have one arrow that as it moves forward does occasional loop-de-loops and turns around briefly before continuing forward again to it's eventual destination. With Metal Gear Solid though, it may had started out with just one journey focusing on one character, but eventually it's horizons got expanded to the point that there were now at least 3 different character paths going on at the same time, each staying in a relatively forward progression. So while MGS has different plots to follow, they each tend to stay pretty linear and all contribute in some way to kind of make one giant arrow made up of three smaller arrows starting and ending at different points in the huge arrow. So with one you only have one story to follow but it does literally take it's time getting to it's destination by zooming all over the place, and with the other you have multiple stories that you have to follow in order to make sense of the whole story and lore of the series, but each of them progresses in a simple linear fashion while contributing to the series as a whole.

 

So in a sense, they are as different as they are similar in terms of how their complex stories work, but really what makes them complex in the first place is the content they have in them that makes them so much more interesting. And frankly that's where my comparison ends, because when you get to that point you're trying to argue which is better, a more realistic fantasy or a more fantastic fantasy? Metal Gear may have taken A LOT of liberties with what is actually possible, but it still does a good job trying to ground itself in a mostly realistic depiction of our world, only with more walking tanks and psychic powers and what have you. Kingdom Hearts fully embraces the fact that it is a fantasy and pushes that as far as it will go, even taking the WTF nature of dreams and using it to it's impossible advantage. One is trying to take reality and make it more interesting (as a nod to many well loved American action movies) while the other is trying to make the fantasy come to life more and more. So when you get down to it even if their methods are similar, their content and intentions are fairly different. But at the very least they are similar enough to grab an open-minded fan of either franchise and introduce him or her to the other. It shouldn't really matter which one's story is "better" in how convoluted or simple it is to follow, or whether it's based more on reality or the possibilities of fantasy. What should matter is despite the differences and the confusion, they're worth every second of gameplay and cutscene marathons. To try and compare them against each other feels like a crime. Why compare between a marshmallow and a piece of chocolate when you could have them both together in quite possibly the most delicious summer treat that I have recently become obsessed with-and good god I'm hungry, than's a lot games.