FUNGoodbye

With the exception of Vexen's shields they've managed to incorporate the weapon of choice of each of these members of the organization incredibly well making it difficult to choose between the remaining three. The first thing that always comes to my mind though is the KH2 battle with Xaldin on the bridge in Beast's world so his is the one I voted for.

Lexaeus has the most physically devastating one. Zexion has the most mentally and emotionally devastating one. What I like about all four of their weapons though is how the series managed to make each one stand out in a meaningful way. The way Riku hits the ceiling from that one blow by Lexaeus's Axe Sword, the entirety of the mind games that ensue during Riku's fight with Zexion, the way they incorporated Saix's Claymore for the fight against him in KH2, and Axel saving Minnie and Sora with his Chakrams in Dream Drop Distance.

They all kind of just blend together for me so I voted for one I knew most people wouldn't vote for (The Force Awakens) just to go against the status quo.

May he rest in peace. Big sad. But he left a great legacy behind. The world shall not forget him.

Riku. I'm also curious in general to see how he'd react to meeting Santa given he's the one who convinced Sora Santa doesn't exist.

Riku. He's long overdue for one. The whole of the Seasalt trio is too to be quite honest.

2023 is almost at its end. All of the hopes for KH4 coming out this year or in 2024 seem like they should've gone to hoping KH: Missing Link releases anytime soon. I still think they'll try to capitalize on the 25th anniversary for KH4. If we don't get any updates on the status of KH4 by this time next year though, the jokes some people make about having to wait until the 2030s for KH4 to come out will start feeling like a much more real possibility. And that is a big "yikes forever" scenario as Little Misfortune from the game of the same name would put it.

Voted for No DLC. I know it's standard practice now, but I still hate DLC. Especially if it's not just cosmetic and should have come with the bloody game in the first place. Surprised to see Story Expansion winning the poll.

The reception for the live action remakes of classic films by Disney hasn't exactly been stellar and most have netted them great losses financially. A live action version of one of the Kingdom Hearts games (knowing Disney they'd start with the first game and try launching a live action film series with it rather than picking one of the games at random) would be interesting because it would technically be them trying new things, but at the same time be familiar territory for them. I don't think the games themselves need a reboot/remake/Re-Anything At All really. There are fan stage plays and musicals for Kingdom Hearts on YouTube and IMHO if the fans can come up with adaptations of the series in those forms that are rather decent Disney and Square Enix could probably do it pretty well themselves. As far as adapting Kingdom Hearts to other mediums being a worthwhile thing and better experience, I don't think it'd be a better experience necessarily just a different one, same as with reading the manga and light novels is different from playing the games, and how a movie would be different than a stage play which would be similar but different to a musical adaptation. And on the worthwhile thing to do front, long as there's money to be made it almost definitely would be worth their while, but they'd have to weigh the costs of production and promotion against the potential profit margins. If they're going to barely recoup their production and promotion costs what would even be the point of doing it? End of the day they're not some charity organization. Honestly though it would just be nice to have a new KH game that's not a mobile game by 2026.

The World That Never Was, both times.

Voted for True End.

My vote went to Trinity Guard.

A retrospective on Re:CoM from YouTube claims it was successful at over 2.6 million copies sold worldwide, but it isn't exactly easy to pin down if the game sold well by itself in its PS2 release (which saw it bundled with KH2 vanilla in some territories outside of Japan and with the KH1 and KH2 Final Mixes which back then were Japan exclusive, kind of speaking to a lack of confidence in Re:CoM's ability to sell alone by SquareEnix) or if the bulk of the sales are from the scramble to get caught up by people who got into the series in anticipation of Kingdom Hearts 3 through the HD upscale versions of it featured on the 1.5 and 2.8 collections. 14 year old Game-Spot forum on the subject mater: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/954016-kingdom-hearts-rechain-of-memories/47839863 If I'm correct the users in there were tracking the Japanese sales of Re:CoM through Oricon. And it seems to have done quite well for its first week.

I'm indifferent to it. What I do know about it and have seen played of it by others though just feels like more of the same old same old from Final Fantasy and other JRPGs with a modern day coat of paint. But at the same time if it ain't broken don't try to fix it IMHO. I'll probably play it for myself eventually, but I'm fine not picking it up just yet. Especially if it's gonna get put through the customary song and dance of the currently available release of it being a base game that gets expanded on somehow.

The short lived trio of Riku, Axel, and Namine is missing from the list of options. I voted for Sora, Donald, and Goofy (mostly to not pour another vote into the Seasalt trio which I'm almost 99% will be the one that comes out with the most votes in the end).

For as much as fans perceive Chain of Memories as a game that tanked and wasn't popular it actually was quite the opposite if sales reports and reviews from when it was released on GBA are to be believed. The PS2 port was a direct response to its success on the GBA. Not giving it full voice acting more so marks product of the time period as back in those days it was a very special occasion for a video game to release as a Full Voice Edition, even then it was rare for the Full Voice Editions to release outside of the game's original territory. Also going from only a few pieces of voice acting on the GBA release to all of the plot relevant scenes being voiced for the PS2 port was already a massive step up when it comes to adding voice acting.

Goodbye Sword, I'll get a keyblade (thanks Riku, thanks Ventus!) in your place later. I have no good replacement for a staff (Donald) and shield (Goofy) though.

I am not surprised to see Way to Dawn winning. I voted for it too. While the giant car key meme that arose from Braveheart was epic, Braveheart really does feel like a huge downgrade after how storied a journey Riku had with Way to Dawn evolving from his initial trademark weapon Soul Eater. The scene of Rikusem stabbing Maleficent with the Key of Peoples Hearts is always gonna be a fun one to watch. Cold brutal betrayal at its finest.

I mean, what were you expecting exactly? KH has been pretty notoriously bad at handling the little things like that from the very beginning and Remind only made it more glaringly obvious than its ever been before. We don't even get a hug out of Riku and Kairi when she wakes up after a whole year asleep to lend merit to the idea that the two are actually friends with each other rather than two people with a mutual friend in the form of Sora.

Oh my god I've never heard of Up Up and Away or Jump In but I firmly remember how hard it was to escape from both The Cheetah Girls and High School Musical. I'm not even the slightest bit ashamed to say I was a fan of The Cheetah Girls (what can I say they had Raven Simone and two thirds of 3LW in there and Sabrina Bryan was given a really relateable character, it was kind of a recipe for success). High School Musical is something I didn't watch in its entirety until three years after it had first aired, but by the time I did I already knew all the songs and the plot because of just how strongly promoted it was. I voted for The Cheetah Girls of course. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2svIyvmwFKc - This still hits the heart strings like it did back in the day.

On the subject of songs in KH, I would love a Japanese Character Image Songs album for KH. The vast majority of the Organization's members and the Destiny/Seasalt/Wayfinder trios have Japanese VAs who can sing. Not doing a Character Image Songs album is a huge missed opportunity for KH with that amount of talent. I would worry about future vocal songs in KH even if they are Japanese ones because a lot of Japanese studios who the music could belong to are just as likely to throw a copyright claim at you if you're doing a let's play or stream of any KH game that ended up featuring their music as Disney is to throw a copyright claim at you for not cutting out the KH3 version of Elsa's performance of Let It Go. It's really a lose lose situation to have vocal songs in the games worlds because of the copyright issues but really if they're not going to be crucial to the world's storytelling having them there would just be a bonus and in its own way even a detriment as they'd serve as nothing except fancy padding out for the game. This is what made Atlantica forgivable. The whole story of this world in KH2 revolves around preparing for a musical which obviously includes rehearsals. Compared to having Let It Go redone shot for shot for KH3 Arendelle just because super famous song from the movie that made sense. Same applies to having Do You Wanna Build A Snowman in there (and having it play over/alongside a scene where Anna and Sora are talking to each other was even more stupid).

I voted for Medieval because of FFIX. Trying to fit Spira into one specific setting is too difficult though it also fits Medieval a lot especially with the backwards thinking of some of the fictional races in it, but it also fits everything else IMHO. In X-2 especially Spira gets far more futuristic thanks to the population being more open to machina and technological advancements in general. And then across both entries Spira has some locations that are very steampunk and modern by comparison to the rest of its locations.

Didn't see this in time to vote. Would've voted for KH2 Kairi. @TrinityXaos# (I wonder why they find that version of Kairi the best) <- Assuming that isn't sarcasm; Answer: Because of the BAMF Kairi in the DLC).

@ienzo628 I'm not sure if it'd be right to say they wanted to appeal to gamers of present day but a case can be made just by looking at the more balanced gameplay of what is essentially a KH3 demo, Birth By Sleep A Fragmentary Passage. I also think tying things to the "cruddy mobile games" is a bit much; they managed to stick relevant (if mostly redundant) overarching story into a rhythm game after all. Eventually we'll end up with a Kingdom Hearts version of Mario Kart that has relevant story in it or a good old fashion physical board game with relevant story in it (as opposed to an in game board game that rewards you nicely if you can get good at it as is present in Birth By Sleep). I don't think it is necessarily true that they didn't care about the other characters and their plot development, it is more that they went with the same mentality that the team writing Dragon Ball GT did. Goku is the protagonist, Goku is everyone's hero, he does the hero stuff. Sora had already been picked for this same role in the past, with Coded insisting Sora had to save the birth by sleep trio and the Days trio and DDD reinforcing it. Also Blank Points or whatever it was called which has all of those characters calling out Sora's name like he's God himself. The issue arose with how they then divided this task up. Riku and Mickey deciding they'd go save Aqua only to be unable to and Sora having to come to the rescue (and the way Riku gets a badass little speech and is ready to rumble with Aqua before that rescue tells of how they were something like 50/50 or 40/60 on if they should or shouldn't commit to their original plan of Sora saving everyone from the Birth By Sleep and Days trios or let Riku and Mickey have this one). Same applies for the fact Aqua had vowed to restore Ven to normal in Birth By Sleep well before the decision for Sora to be the savior for her entire trio was made in an extension to the game and reinforced by Coded and DDD; with her also getting robbed of her hero's moment because they chose the easy route of the main protagonist doing everything important themself. DDD has that whole bit with the Guardian recognizing Riku and Riku seemingly recognizing Terra's in there somewhere that proceeds to go nowhere in KH3 even though the trope of a student saving their master is a classic that almost never fails to land, but for whatever reason they couldn't figure out how to incorporate Riku over Sora into returning Terra to normal nor even the compromise of making it a group effort with you deciding if you wanted to play as Riku or as Sora (it's an absolute low blow that we got character selection only in the DLC, feels like a Triple A developer forgot how to make a game nevermind how to make a good one). Aqua herself who is there when Terra's returned to normal and has such a long history with him likewise suffers a great character disservice with how poorly they integrate her into the save. And here there is no real excuse of gameplay vs narrative dissonance. Motivations wise Aqua has more than enough to be doing what she can to to save Terra, and as a Keyblade Master she has the Power of Waking she can do the same thing as Sora here. That covers narrative, lets talk gameplay. Aqua's also serviceable enough in the base game that you could easily have won a fight against Terranort and Vanitas playing as her with Sora as the third party member instead of the other way around. Especially true prior to them patching in Critical Mode in preparation for the Remind DLC. At the end of the day Sora would've still had major contributions to make (returning Roxas and Xion's hearts to them, saving everyone when they were felled in the Keyblade Graveyard the first time around but clung to the mortal realm, going off to save Kairi at the end and into the DLC, defeating Xehanort at the end with Donald and Goofy in the base game and with Kairi and an assist from the other guardians of light in the DLC). I'm of the opinion that taking the easy route of the main protagonist doing everything hurt KH3 more than it hurt Dragon Ball GT because the former had built towards so many other possibilities that they just didn't embrace, unnecessarily sabotaging several characters in the process; meanwhile Dragon Ball had always had a habit of Goku saving the day in the end with his allies becoming less relevant the longer the series went on so by the Buu saga in DBZ the majority of the fanbase was very much used to it. The difference in medium also takes some sting off of Dragon Ball GT. It being an anime/manga means there's plenty of time in between the heroics for character development of a different sort. This is why a scene like Vegeta telling Pan to take care of a set of Goku's fighting attire towards the end of GT is so powerful. With a video game unless you're willing to take your time and make it very long you can't do slice of life as effectively as an anime or even a manga. And we don't exactly live in an era of 180 hour long RPGs anymore. But I frown upon Kingdom Hearts for the fact that it mostly doesn't even try with the slice of life side of things. Also at this point there are more mobile/hand held Kingdom Hearts games than there are home console ones making the console ones the outliers not the mobile/handheld ones. The sooner the fanbase accepts that the better off the series will be. And if the console games are going to be lackluster because they're expensive to make I think the series is probably better off continuing to release mobile/handheld games every year or two rather than having a huge cool down between one console game and the next with nothing in between. And from a business standpoint I can't fault Square Enix for capitalizing on Japan's love of mobile/handheld gaming.

@ienzo628 Pretty sure DDD being the precursor to KH3 is not and was never a secret. All of its major story bits bleed into KH3 (as per usual for this series outside of only a small portion of Coded's story bleeding into DDD, though concepts introduced in it certainly bled over into DDD and beyond). Also in Olympus they were seemingly committed to the idea that Sora was going to regain his strength with the Power of Waking being the culminating ability, but you can tell from the rate at which Sora was gaining skills and abilities that they opted out of keeping the gameplay and narrative balanced pretty quickly. Sora's arsenal is bigger than Riku's coming out of the second world in the game and bigger than Aqua's coming out of the third. So they committed to the idea for exactly one world, which they treated as a mock prologue and labeled it Kingdom Hearts 2.9 because that was just oh so funny to them. Don't get me wrong the fast rate at which Sora was gaining skills and abilities makes complete and total sense for a modern action RPG (that's just how most gamers like it these days, they don't care to have to work for things, it's one of the express reasons why in many RPGs you can just pay to get everything from the get go now rather than as you level up and even for exp modifiers or amplifiers or straight up for levels themselves rather than exp). However that leaves the narrative around Sora falling flat at every turn. And it really doesn't help that the other playable characters get such limited an amount of skills and abilities to work with. Fixing that would at least maintain an illusion that Sora was catching up to his not back to level 1 allies.