FadedSparkle

That's not quite accurate IMHO. Things don't exactly cap off happily in KH3's Pirates of the Caribbean world given that Will and Elizabeth are left forced to mostly be apart and Sora's definitely the type to have wanted to fix that for them somehow, but he doesn't get a chance to from the devs. IMHO if a world is meant to have a less than happy or even a tragic conclusion they're going to let it happen regardless of Sora and co being inserted into the equation.

It's really not about the IPs themselves, more about how they're incorporated. The worst thing for me is them using the IPs to insult the audience's intelligence by pretending that they matter more than they do or at all to the overarching story. I.E the whole mess of placing hearts in vessels of their choosing on the Organization's end with Toy Story (there is a wealth of attention to detail regarding the Toy Box world itself and the world's environment interacts very well with the gameplay, but aside from some meme-worthy one-liners the story is passable at best and redundant at its worst) when this is something Xehanort knew through Riku's gambit in Monstro and Pinocchio via Ansem Seeker of Darkness's possession of Riku as far back in KH1. Or Sora Donald and Goofy doing Disney Shenanigans in some worlds out of mere obligation because of how famous an IP happens to be like with Kingdom of Corona and Arendelle where they end up insulting the audience by pretending Sora has learned something revolutionary about love/hearts/bonds.

Yes actually he could. They've done stuff where they cover multiple points in time for a world. I.E Beast's Castle (After the events of KH1 we see what Beast and Belle are up to in their homeworld in 358/2 Days (there is a reconnaissance mission with Roxas and Xaldin in this game where Xaldin first gets the idea to turn Beast into a Heartless so the organization can recruit his Nobody) and then we get the aftermath of the events from 358/2 Days in KH2). Then there is the absolutely blatant example of how they couldn't be bothered to care about jumping around timeline wise featured with Pirates of the Caribbean where they skip an entire film between KH2 and KH3's takes on that world. Also this is a series entrenched in time travel and world line shenanigans at this point so it wouldn't even be surprising if Sora ended up meeting both a young and old version of someone. Heck Xehanort himself says hello many times over on that front.

As someone who has never been much of a Star Wars fan I'm not going to care one way or the other if we get one or more Star Wars world(s) or we don't. Whether I end up liking them will depend on how well they implement them.

I'm in agreement about them finally giving us a game revolving specifically around the Destiny trio. I am not in agreement with Riku and Kairi as Sora's main party members though as I would want to get to play as both of them in addition to Sora. Also Sora, Donald, Goofy is too iconic to not have it and I can't imagine Mickey not eventually defying Yen Sid's order to refrain from following Riku into Unreality. He was just way too ready to go after his son in the post credits scene of Melody of Memory. On the Kairi front, assuming they actually aren't just using her training off screen some more as a way to fridge her for the foreseeable future we're probably going to keep getting damage control on their handling of Kairi by way of her completing her training off screen and taking the Mark of Mastery exam off screen to get the Power of Waking so she can go join Riku in Unreality. It'd be nice to see KH4 feature a campaign for each member of the Destiny trio with Sora/Donald/Goofy, Riku/Mickey/Someone New, Kairi/Someone New/Someone New. Heck if giving us fixed Disney or Square Enix mascot party members for Riku and Kairi to fill out their trios is too much to ask for I'd settle for solo campaigns for Sora, Riku, and Kairi where Donald, Goofy, and Mickey just join temporarily like the numerous world specific party members do in prior entries.

With the 25th anniversary being in 2027 I'm honestly expecting them to capitalize on it. Either by taking advantage of the anniversary month itself for the release or releasing it during the 2026 Christmas/Winter Holidays season so that the first six months of people playing the game will coincide with the 25th anniversary and they can try to boost the sales with anniversary events tied to KH4's release. It feels like too much of a golden opportunity for them not to aim to release it between December 2026 and March 2027 is all I'm saying. Before that with FFXVI being another big project on the table my guess is that's the big title we could expect for 2023-2025. Along with FF7R Part 2. I actually wanted to vote for 2026 but since that wasn't an option of its own I had to choose Beyond 2026.

I don't hate it, but it was certainly a bit jarring the first watch of the teaser trailer. Having had a bit to mull it over I actually like a few things about it. The fact that Sora's babyface features have been amplified for this version is nice and adds a whole new level of cute to him. I also like the way the hair was done. I look forward to seeing what he and other familiar characters will look like once KH4 actually releases (which I'm kind of expecting to happen for the 25th anniversary (2027) or the Christmas/Winter Holidays season the year prior).

I was less disappointed that Riku didn't play a role and more disappointed that Terra mostly saved himself. There was a minor assist from Sora in there (especially without the Remind DLC factored in) but for the most part Terra really saved himself. It was pretty embarrassing to see how hard they over-complicated things for the sake of honoring Sora being the one who saved everyone instead of just letting certain plot threads reach their natural conclusions though. Aqua keeping her promise to Ven, Mickey and Riku actually having a proper role in Aqua's rescue (Sora didn't even necessarily not have to be there just make it a team effort and Dark Aqua a tougher boss) and involve Riku in saving Terra even if you keep Sora involved.

Well that's some disheartening news to say the least. My condolences to her loved ones and may she rest in peace.

I distinctly remember that in the Days video game when they send everyone out on missions with Roxas to essentially show him the ropes of the ins and outs of the Organizations daily dealings Larxene actually treats him alright when its her turn. She treats him almost like an older sister with a kid brother she's not necessarily happy to deal with but not unhappy to have to deal with either. Also the way that Axel kills Vexen especially in ReCoM is super brutal. I don't think there's that huge of a stretch to friend material between him and Larxene especially if they started to explore the Elrena side of Larxene's personality early in Days vs in Union Cross which I don't know nearly enough about given I could really care less about Union Cross but I doubt she was also a Sadist back then. Also a question about the replicas themselves. They look like store-bought mannequins in their vessel form and all we have to go off of for how they then become proper replicas is that they get data inserted into them that serves as the heart and that data allows them to take on the form of the person their source data came from. None of this sounds like it requires any kind of higher education or special degree. And I'm still banking on someone being able to do it better than Vexen without any so called experience in any special field just because of plot reasons because this is KH where plot contrivance is very very real.

Let me ask you something then, the character of Axel as we knew him in Chain of Memories did he make you think he was friend material for Roxas? He was pretty messed up too. The rest of what you said that mostly makes sense as laid out within unfolded canon. Although I don't buy into no-one other than Vexen being smart enough to figure the replica data out and consider it more of KH3's over abundant plot contrivance than anything else that only Vexen knew how to make them. And I'm actually waiting on KH to pull something just for plot's sake where another character randomly knows how to make replicas (likely even better than Vexen). At this point nothing will surprise me about this series.

Days definitely could've worked without Xion. Primarily because if what they wanted was to tell a story of another two boys and a girl trio they already had a female in the Organization to tell the story with in Larxene. Imagine how much depth the story could contain if they had to write Roxas coping with the death Larxene after the Castle Oblivion mission if she had been in Xion's place in the Seasalt trio instead of Xion. This would also have added more weight to Axel having to ensure the traitors to the organization didn't come back from the Castle Oblivion mission in that he'd be having to ensure that Larxene, now a friend wasn't coming back even if this would ultimately be helping another friend Saix/Isa out (as we now know from information revealed in KH3). On the front of keyblades after Vexen's death they would still have had Repliku's data available to mess with, essentially being able to make as many copies of him as they wanted. He could then wield a Kingdom Key for them en masse and even if he for some plot contriving reason couldn't wield that every time Soul Eater is used against a heartless it does the same thing a bonafide keyblade does releasing the captive heart so the organization could still have used him for collecting hearts for their artificial Kingdom Hearts.

I'm just gonna reiterate that feeling the need to make a separate thread drawing attention to a dark skinned/"colored" character is the exact opposite of taking pride and celebration in it. If it's really that great a thing you shouldn't feel the need to treat it like the elephant in the room otherwise full of cats. You should just be happy to let it exist and continue on with your life, not suddenly stop to acknowledge it like something revolutionary occurred. We are all human, all people. These are the kinds of life lessons your homeroom teachers are meant to have taught you in kindergarten or first grade for crying out loud. We all look different in some way or another, but we're all people in the end.

You mean aside from anyone having to point it out at all instead of just the character's existence being left to simply be a thing instead of him being treated like an elephant in the room. Because aside from it being pointed out here someone made an entire separate topic "The first African American KH Character" https://www.kh13.com/forums/topic/129544-1st-african-american-kh-character/?do=getNewComment or something to that effect. And all I could think is; Would you like fries with that virtue signal sandwich? I imagine that in times of segregation and more recently in the immediate aftermath of the events that led to the Black Lives Matter movement Blacks walking into establishments with mostly white people who just stared at them suspiciously must feel much like the fictional character in this game would feel if they were real and that topic was a literal sign not a forum topic on the internet (and vice versa for any whites who happened to be walking into establishments filled with mostly blacks it goes both ways). I hope you can see why I find this all just a little bit ridiculous of a talking point. The character's skin color is irrelevant. The fact that the character is a person is relevant. Representation for the sake of representation, or just to cover your bases (tick off all the boxes) is also just another form of the long time used in various ways thing known as tokenism, which is another thing to keep in mind. We don't know if this KH character is an example of this or not anymore than we know if the character is meant to actually be an African American, but considering what Disney's doing outside of KH right now it wouldn't surprise me. Truly people, do we want to go backwards instead of forwards. Do we want to keep putting emphasis on what makes us different instead of what makes us all the same human beings? I remember when zombies bled every color of the rainbow in video games instead of just red like real life humans. I remember when character skins in video games could be every color under the sun because your skin color was irrelevant. Now everything has to be hyper realistic and nothing can ever be fun for long because politics this, agendas that. Please no more.

I wasn't trying to make it out like African American representation would be something bad or something not to be celebrated, but I still don't know if the character is meant to be African American. Saying dark skin = African American would be like saying I should suddenly consider Mihoshi Kuramitsu from Tenchi Muyo an African American just because of her skin color. Since when in a Japanese IP does dark skin = African American representation is essentially the question I'm posing here. And while representation is important, making a big deal out of it only makes people come off as insecure. That doesn't even just apply to African American representation. Other cultures/minorities are the same way. It can get pretty cringey seeing people get ecstatic over devs addressing "diversity"