So we have Apprentice Xehanort who lost his heart while doing research for Ansem the Wise.
This leads to the formation of Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, the antagonist of KH1.
This also leads to the formation of Xemnas, the antagonist of KH2.
BBS goes a bit more into the backstory of Apprentice Xehanort where we start to see his motivation for what he does.
Re:Coded tells us that when a Heartless and Nobody are destroyed, the original person reforms.
Remembering the events of KH1 and KH2, you might think that the antagonist of KH3 would be obvious, right?
Apprentice Xehanort.
It would keep in the theme with Apprentice Xehanort being the antagonist of every main game and would allow for the plot to cut out the extra fat that we don't need like Re:Coded and DDD.
BBS could have established Apprentice Xehanort's ultimate goals and set him up for the villain of KH3.
In KH3, Yen Side and Mickey could have explain to Sora and co. what happened between TAV and Master Xehanort, and now that Apprentice Xehanort (AX) has reformed, Sora, Donald and Goofy must go out and search the worlds for him while Riku and Mickey stay behind to train Kairi.
But "AHA" I hear you cry. What kind of motivation is that for exploring the Disney worlds? Looking for a person? That's lame and would get old fast. Plus they kinda already did that in the previous games.
Well yes I agree which is why they'll find AX at the beginning of the game.
As SDG fly out to space they'll pick up a strange energy reading that leads them to the Keyblade Graveyard. There they find AX.
And here is where my idea starts to break down because I haven't planned it out too far.
SDG have a fight with AX which they lose and somehow AX gains access to Kingdom Hearts. He uses it's power to plunge the worlds into darkness and sends SDG blasting off into space, while vanishing into Kingdom Hearts.
Now it's up to them to go to the different worlds and restore them to light by defeating the boss heartless that has consumed the heart of each world or something. Again, haven't thought too much about this part. There'd be room for variation. I wouldn't want a repetitive pattern like the previous games. The bosses could of course incorporate the Disney villains if it's possible. I'm all for that. After completing each world, SDG will notice that they seem to be getting closer and closer to darkness, and eventually they'll come to a strange warp hole that takes them to the Realm of Darkness.
(This will occur due to AX's tampering with the balance of Light and Darkness, and as a result the two realms begin to cross over.)
SDG will enter this warp hole under the assumption that some worlds have already been lost to the darkness. Inside they come across a world: Castle of Dreams (to establish the connection between this game and the BBSFM Secret Ending?)
Here they begin to go about their usual routine but during the supposed boss fight for the world, they realize that because they're in the Realm of Darkness, the heartless are much stronger, and as such they're outmatched.
Suddenly when all hope seems lost, Aqua comes out of nowhere to join the fight. You then finish the fight alongside Aqua. Afterwards, she begins to explain how she got here aaaand because most people already know this, let's say the scene fades to black and we cut back to the Mysterious Tower where Mickey and Yen Sid have managed to hold off the darkness from affecting the tower.
Yen Sid learns from the plot contrivance stars that something has happened to SDG, causing Riku, Kairi and Mickey to want to go after them. Yen Sid reluctantly allows them to leave. They take off in another gummi ship.
Nowww here is where I really don't have things planned out. This new trio could either: 1) explore the newly restored worlds which still have lingering threats in the form of the Disney villains themselves or 2) go straight ahead to locating SDG in the Realm of Darkness.
The reason they'd go back to the worlds would be to show the contrast between the world shrouded in darkness and then how it looks restored in light. In fact the whole "all the worlds are plunged into darkness" thing was there to set up a unique look to the worlds. A darker and more sinister feel that would then be replaced by the more colorful and natural look once SDG restored the world. This would help to take advantage of the power of the new consoles, I feel.
I mean I wouldn't want the world revisits to drag on or feel like filler so this would be a tricky move. At the least, they could be used to give the Disney villains the spotlight for a while, maybe introduce some new combat features as a result of the training mentioned earlier, or establish some plot points for later? Idk. Again, tricky stuff.
Either way, RKM come to the portal to the RoD and enter. They see SDG's gummi ship and know that they're on the right track.
Then idk stuff happens, maybe we cut back to SDG and Aqua and some build up happens and then the two groups meet up just in time for a sweet ass boss fight against...idk a Darkside on steroids? Beats me. Put that next gen power to use. A seven man team up against a boss would be cool to see.
That's basically all I've got, and most of the stuff after the initial KH3 opening was written on the fly. Taking a page out of Nomura's book, as it were. Hopefully it didn't come across too much like a bad fanfic. The main thing I wanted to get across was how Apprentice Xehanort could have been set up as the main antagonist and still posed a significant threat, rather than throwing 13 Xehanorts at us.
Not to mention I wanted to try and give Sora a legit reason to explore the worlds so I figured raising the stakes by just plunging them into darkness would do a decent job of that, rather than having them just go around looking for a magical macguffin key of hearts or whatever. Plus once they're restored you'd be able to see the impact your actions had by seeing the worlds in their original states.
So those are my thoughts on how KH3 could have been. I tried to break it up and keep things brief so it wasn't a complicated and painful wall of text. Thanks for reading.
So we have Apprentice Xehanort who lost his heart while doing research for Ansem the Wise.
This leads to the formation of Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, the antagonist of KH1.
This also leads to the formation of Xemnas, the antagonist of KH2.
BBS goes a bit more into the backstory of Apprentice Xehanort where we start to see his motivation for what he does.
Re:Coded tells us that when a Heartless and Nobody are destroyed, the original person reforms.
Remembering the events of KH1 and KH2, you might think that the antagonist of KH3 would be obvious, right?
Apprentice Xehanort.
It would keep in the theme with Apprentice Xehanort being the antagonist of every main game and would allow for the plot to cut out the extra fat that we don't need like Re:Coded and DDD.
BBS could have established Apprentice Xehanort's ultimate goals and set him up for the villain of KH3.
In KH3, Yen Side and Mickey could have explain to Sora and co. what happened between TAV and Master Xehanort, and now that Apprentice Xehanort (AX) has reformed, Sora, Donald and Goofy must go out and search the worlds for him while Riku and Mickey stay behind to train Kairi.
But "AHA" I hear you cry. What kind of motivation is that for exploring the Disney worlds? Looking for a person? That's lame and would get old fast. Plus they kinda already did that in the previous games.
Well yes I agree which is why they'll find AX at the beginning of the game.
As SDG fly out to space they'll pick up a strange energy reading that leads them to the Keyblade Graveyard. There they find AX.
And here is where my idea starts to break down because I haven't planned it out too far.
SDG have a fight with AX which they lose and somehow AX gains access to Kingdom Hearts. He uses it's power to plunge the worlds into darkness and sends SDG blasting off into space, while vanishing into Kingdom Hearts.
Now it's up to them to go to the different worlds and restore them to light by defeating the boss heartless that has consumed the heart of each world or something. Again, haven't thought too much about this part. There'd be room for variation. I wouldn't want a repetitive pattern like the previous games. The bosses could of course incorporate the Disney villains if it's possible. I'm all for that. After completing each world, SDG will notice that they seem to be getting closer and closer to darkness, and eventually they'll come to a strange warp hole that takes them to the Realm of Darkness.
(This will occur due to AX's tampering with the balance of Light and Darkness, and as a result the two realms begin to cross over.)
SDG will enter this warp hole under the assumption that some worlds have already been lost to the darkness. Inside they come across a world: Castle of Dreams (to establish the connection between this game and the BBSFM Secret Ending?)
Here they begin to go about their usual routine but during the supposed boss fight for the world, they realize that because they're in the Realm of Darkness, the heartless are much stronger, and as such they're outmatched.
Suddenly when all hope seems lost, Aqua comes out of nowhere to join the fight. You then finish the fight alongside Aqua. Afterwards, she begins to explain how she got here aaaand because most people already know this, let's say the scene fades to black and we cut back to the Mysterious Tower where Mickey and Yen Sid have managed to hold off the darkness from affecting the tower.
Yen Sid learns from the plot contrivance stars that something has happened to SDG, causing Riku, Kairi and Mickey to want to go after them. Yen Sid reluctantly allows them to leave. They take off in another gummi ship.
Nowww here is where I really don't have things planned out. This new trio could either: 1) explore the newly restored worlds which still have lingering threats in the form of the Disney villains themselves or 2) go straight ahead to locating SDG in the Realm of Darkness.
The reason they'd go back to the worlds would be to show the contrast between the world shrouded in darkness and then how it looks restored in light. In fact the whole "all the worlds are plunged into darkness" thing was there to set up a unique look to the worlds. A darker and more sinister feel that would then be replaced by the more colorful and natural look once SDG restored the world. This would help to take advantage of the power of the new consoles, I feel.
I mean I wouldn't want the world revisits to drag on or feel like filler so this would be a tricky move. At the least, they could be used to give the Disney villains the spotlight for a while, maybe introduce some new combat features as a result of the training mentioned earlier, or establish some plot points for later? Idk. Again, tricky stuff.
Either way, RKM come to the portal to the RoD and enter. They see SDG's gummi ship and know that they're on the right track.
Then idk stuff happens, maybe we cut back to SDG and Aqua and some build up happens and then the two groups meet up just in time for a sweet ass boss fight against...idk a Darkside on steroids? Beats me. Put that next gen power to use. A seven man team up against a boss would be cool to see.
That's basically all I've got, and most of the stuff after the initial KH3 opening was written on the fly. Taking a page out of Nomura's book, as it were. Hopefully it didn't come across too much like a bad fanfic. The main thing I wanted to get across was how Apprentice Xehanort could have been set up as the main antagonist and still posed a significant threat, rather than throwing 13 Xehanorts at us.
Not to mention I wanted to try and give Sora a legit reason to explore the worlds so I figured raising the stakes by just plunging them into darkness would do a decent job of that, rather than having them just go around looking for a magical macguffin key of hearts or whatever. Plus once they're restored you'd be able to see the impact your actions had by seeing the worlds in their original states.
So those are my thoughts on how KH3 could have been. I tried to break it up and keep things brief so it wasn't a complicated and painful wall of text. Thanks for reading.