Kingdom Hearts III was infamous for being one of the most long-awaited games of all time. Ever since seeing three armored individuals and the words "Keyblade War" on their screens during Kingdom Hearts II's secret ending in 2005, fans eagerly awaited the third entry. But while multiple side-stories were released in the meantime, it took over 12 years of waiting to obtain the "true" next chapter. And after years of rumors and false-hope, fans could finally experience the Keyblade War and the end of the Xehanort Saga. But was it worth the long wait?
Well, visually the game was stunning, the gameplay was overall pretty fun (albeit a bit too easy), exploring the Disney worlds truly felt like you were in the movies, there were loads of side-quests, and even the Gummi Ship missions were improved!
That said, the game's story was a total disaster.
Kingdom Hearts III's Underwhelming Story
To preface, the writing throughout KH, Chain of Memories, KH2, 358/2 Days, and Birth By Sleep was hardly perfect. There was plenty of cheesy dialog, some retcons & minor contradictions, and a few plot-points could be confusing if you didn't thoroughly read the games' journals. But those small faults were made-up for by the lively cast of characters and their interesting stories. And if you were a diehard fan of the series, you could still make sense of & appreciate the extensive lore. And while Dream Drop Distance's story was a bit of a mess (thanks to its confusing use of time-travel and dream-worlds), it at least felt like an awkward-but-necessary step towards KH3, where hopefully everything would come together.
Unfortunately, KH3's writing paled in comparison to the charming stories told in the earlier games. Gone were the days of feeling like an epic Disney/Final Fantasy crossover through the lens of interesting original characters. In fact, Disney worlds and characters were no longer relevant to the plot at all; Sora would visit worlds for no discernable reason and essentially watch the movies' plotlines play-out in front of him. The grand "Keyblade War” amounted to being a small skirmish in the desert. Respect to character backgrounds, motivations, and lore was thrown out the window. Plotholes, inconsistencies, and unnecessary retcons were blatant. And finally, we were left with more cliff-hangers/unresolved plotlines than any of the previous games in the saga!
Despite years of cryptic dialog and journal entries, mysterious lingering plotlines, and answers being teased by the director in interviews, it's obvious that nothing about this game's story had been planned in advance. Instead, a plot was haphazardly thrown together and painted with some cheap "fan service" moments. Or to put it another way: What could've been a satisfactory saga-closer à la Avengers: Endgame, instead more so resembled the Game of Thrones finale. But after fantasizing about the game for years, so many "what could've been" ideas & theories still rang in our heads...to the point where we thought "hey, we should rewrite the entire game!"
What is "Kingdom Hearts III Re:Imagined"?
Kingdom Hearts III Re:Imagined is a passion-project webcomic created by some fans who grew up with the series. With this webcomic, we aim to overhaul the entire story of Kingdom Hearts III, in order to let other long-time fans experience what we consider to be a more satisfying end to the saga. The Disney worlds will be completely rewritten to be pertinent to the plot, glaring plotholes/unanswered questions will be stamped-out, and the story will feel less convoluted. But making our comic feel like it could actually be a part of the series was our primary goal. So naturally, we can guarantee that there will be:
No Disney worlds that weren't already present in KH3
No Marvel/Star Wars characters
No edgy/"mature" themes
No original/fanfic characters
No changes to existing characters' personalities
No outlandish retcons (any retcons will be logical/can be backed-up with evidence)
No shipping
To ensure that our story and script are as respectful/accurate to the series as possible, nearly 30 pages of notes were taken on the previous games. So in order to fully understand our story, you should be very familiar with the following:
Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix
Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days
Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep
While the events of Dream Drop Distance will be acknowledged in our story, this really only pertains to the formation of the new Organization XIII & the Guardians of Light (time-travel, dreams, and data will not be relevant). Kingdom Hearts: coded also won't be very relevant, outside of perhaps a passing reference.
Regarding Kingdom Hearts: Union X Dark Road & Melody of Memory, plot-points from these games will not be acknowledged whatsoever. We feel that the original 5 games had already set-up great stories/lore to build upon in KH3, and that the retcons introduced in the mobile games were completely unnecessary.
As mentioned before, this is purely a non-profit passion-project from old fans of the series. We are not professional writers, and to us this is just a fun project that we work on in our down-time. So don't expect frequent updates, this will certainly take a long time for us to finish! But we've had a great time creating it so far, and we're very excited to share our ideas.
At the time of this writing, the first 4 chapters are now available. Admittedly, the first three are a little exposition-heavy, as they're acting as the game's intro. But we feel that our Toy Story chapter is a perfect representation of our goals with this webcomic, so we hope you check that out.
Enjoy!
https://www.wattpad.com/story/345859504-kingdom-hearts-iii-reimagined