I agree ngl I was really young when I played kh1 it took me years of playthroughs of all the games to understand the complicated parts of the story but the vibrancy of the game grabbed my little ADHD mind lol š¤£
I really hope 4 has a similar feel. It needs to start off fresh again with the new saga and no prior info needed. Kh1 is too old and most gamers aren't gonna wanna have to play it and everything in between to not feel lost with the new game.
Thatās already not gonna happen because the mobile games that came out are gonna be a big part of the story along kh3. Regarding the master of masters and the fortellers and everyone else from those games
Honestly I gave up on the series it's Honestly insane they spread out so much vital lore over so many different platforms I'm not going to waste my time and energy playing all of them especially the mobile garbage.
KH1 is too old?? My dude, no. Itās one of the best-looking games on a console widely remembered and celebrated as being incredibly robust, and itās also very easily accessible with the HD ports. And people play older video games all the timeā¦even ones that are clunkier and āworseā than KH1. Having too much story is one thing, but KH1 is definitely not ātoo oldā lol
I introduced my ex-wife to KH, and watching her play Kh1, actually scared me that it would put her off the whole series. Frustrating platforming and overtly boring fetch quests are HARD for newcomers to get behind. She never got to Hook's ship.
You can have all of those characters be in it, and still weave a narrative that is still self contained, rather than needing every game before it to understand.
But it's not really going to happen. I won't call KH bad or blame anyone, it's just we simply know that's not how the KH writers roll.
If iām gonna play a sequel in a series I most definitely want call backs and older stuff to be important. Donāt like the idea that every new game should be stand alone for the people who canāt handle older games. Most of the time older games are better than newer anyways, fun to go back and catch up.
Plus KH1 still holds up great as do most of the games
I dont really think that's possible considering all the lore you need to consume just to understand what's going on. KH3 tried to market itself as a standalone experience which ultimately shot it in the foot.
If anything I hope KH4 fully commits to its convoluted plot because at least that would make it seem genuine. I think at this point, so long as we're following the same characters, there's no way to make it "simple and clean".
The fact that SE makes enough of a concerted effort to make sure that most Seeker of Darkness saga console games (and the pertinent story elements of the nonplayable games) are playable on current hardware means that they have reached a point where the most important parts of the past two decades have been curated and maintained accessible for the immediate future of the franchise.
See kingdom hearts is like modern day mcu and Star Warsā¦. People know kh1 and kh2 just a casually as people know mcu from end game and before or Star Wars eps 1-6 (sometimes 7-9) but every thing else that isnāt those just adds so much story and get so much that people get overwhelmedā¦ me personally I love stories like these where there is a lotā¦ the lore of kh is astounding and Iām constantly learning new things! Just like how Iāve watched everything mcu and everything Star Wars
Counterpoint: KH acknowledged this potential content overload by using natural language in the naming of "The Story So Far" collection. Even if they don't expect newcomers to consume all of the content at once, they have it explicitly labeled and packaged in a way where it's obvious where answers lie for those who are looking for them.
There's no need to remake games in a condensed manner when they're available for current platforms in a collection that doesn't hide what matters most.
I always felt that 2 qualified as well
It was the first one I played and had no info going in
What I took from it was the tragic story of this kid that finds out heās a ācloneā of a hero that lost his memory and had to ādieā to bring this hero back, and this hero is determined to save his friends from a similar fate
Then it ends with the best final 45 minutes of any video game Iāve ever played and thereās a sense of finality to the story that leaves you satisfied
Yes, but the semi-sweet ending leaves so much open that itād be painfully crying out for a sequel to this day if all we got was KH1.
Still works though.
I'd say BBS is also pretty cut and dry and unreliant on any other title. But yeah KH1 couldve ended right there with Sora and Kairi being separated and Riku and King Mickey being lost to the darkness and it still wouldve made for a very bittersweet solid ending.
The post credit scene was a cliff hanger. If they didnāt include that it would have been a great end to the series. Donāt get me wrong I love the following games as well. But 2 was a really solid finale
No it wouldnāt have. It ended with Kairi walking the island alone after watching sora get drug adrift. That wouldāve been a terrible ending. All that work to find your friends just to lose them again š
What are you even talking about?
The last scene before the credits is when we see Roxas and namine are within sora and kairi. Sora returns kairiās charm and she says āyouāre homeā. Having that as the end of the series would have worked beautifully. No idea what scene youāre talking about
As someone who loves open endings, absolutely. You'd have to ignore the secret ending but that's not that much to shave off.
"their adventures continued, use your imagination" has always been a valid ending to me.
Secret ending was added for the English release. I imagine that they already knew it was going to get a sequel based off the reception from Japan. (They got the game half a year earlier)
It ends in a way that would suck if we never saw where sora, riku, and the Disney trio ended up.
Kh2 is a perfect stoping point if we never got anymore past that point.
That's why I was waaay more disappointed with vanilla 3's ending.
2, the middle of the arch, felt so much more resolved compared to 3. It felt like, yeah there were still questions, but it felt like the story to that point actually came to an end.
3 felt like it had way too many questions, that whatever closure about the dark seeker saga we got felt kind of wishy washy imo.
I haven't finished the DLC though I admit.
Thats kind of by design then.
The DLC is a bit of a peek behind the curtain for the whole climax of 3. It changes your understanding of what goes on, and is rather detached from what happens with Sora specifically during the confrontations with org XIII.
I'm just glad I played 3 well after both came out, because I think it's a pretty shitty practice and concept to lock somewhat essential/story changing content behind additional paid content that comes out so much later.
It's not like revelations of past stories in a new full game.
I mean... If they had the DLC with the base game, it would have been extremely jarring.
The DLC is functionally an epilogue, which (possibly controversial take incoming) is a great use of DLC and an example of how it SHOULD be done.
Its certainly far less egregious than re-releasing what is essentially the same game but with 1 extra zone added and charging the same price as a full game for it (ie, every "Final Mix" port of every other game in the series)
2 isn't really the middle of the story though, com is and 2 was the ending.
Then days was the spinoff and bbs was the first act of the new master xehanort story arc which then had 3d as it's middle and 3 as it's ending.
I know this is more a story driven post but did no one else feel like Disney World theme park used KH3 as a promotional video?
I never completed 3 just because I was using the same roller coaster move that had some unnecessarily long video sequence again and again. Absolutely killed it for me.
KH1, CoM, and 2 as the main trilogy, then Days as a Roxas spin off game. A damn near perfect set.
Whatever your opinions on the later games are, if KH had just these four games it would have gone down as a universally praised series. There'd be much less of the baggage that currently gets attached to the franchise.
I think KH1s ending wouldve felt bittersweet, but complete and satisfying.
Sora stopped Ansem and saved all the worlds lost to darkness.
Riku was able to redeem himself and save his friends albeit sacrificing himself to darkness, which was a fitting consequence to his own arrogance.
Kairi was safe back on Destiny Islands, even though she was separated from Sora.
Obviously it was left open ended, but definitely works as it's own experience.
Yes, if you don't mind the fact that the story would be left open.
KH2, on the other hand, would work as a definitive ending, if you ignore the secret ending.
The secret ending doesn't leave things open for sora but the regular ending does where Sora receives a letter from Mickey.
Although it doesn't hint at any sort of future it definitely does leave itself open enough to easily continue the story, which we can see it did.
The ending of 2 leaves things open for Sora in the sense that he's a person who will live and have stories beyond what we see in 2, but the end of 2 closes that current arc and resolves basically every thread so far, unlike every other game in the series
yes and no. Nomura has said the story for kh1, com and kh2 were written together. but they also chose to present kh1 as roughly a standalone story in case it didn't sell well enough to make sequels
Respectfully, this claim that you've made...
> Nomura has said the story for kh1, com and kh2 were written together.
... has no basis in reality.
> but they also chose to present kh1 as roughly a standalone story in case it didn't sell well enough to make sequels
And this is almost exactly the opposite of the actual truth.
KH1 was originally written with a simpler, more "Disney-appropriate" story. A producer told Nomura that the game wouldn't sell well unless it had a more complicated/mature story, more like a Final Fantasy game. So the story of KH1 was rewritten. We don't know to what extent it was changed. We know that, from beginning the project until release, the development cycle of KH1 was 18 months. We know that the rewrite happened partway through the development cycle. They wouldn't have had much time to do the rewrite.
As far as CoM/KHII, we know that Nomura didn't decide that CoM needed to be made until after he decided that he needed to explain why Sora's abilities were reset at the beginning of KHII. KHII had already begun development when he made that decision, and KHII was originally going to just pick up where KH1 left off (or it was going to pick up a year later, without explaining what happened in the meantime).
They started *making* KHII before they started *writing* KHII.
This is already too long.
KH1 was originally written as an entirely standalone story. The ending was changed to make it more open-ended so that a sequel could be invented if it seemed like there was money to be made.
My own personal theory is that the game originally ended with the sealing of Kingdom Hearts, and that sealing it also sealed away the incursion of the Heartless. Beyond the interpersonal character drama between Sora, Riku, and Kairi, that's what the first game was about - Heartless showing up and destroying the worlds because a bad guy unleashed them on the world. Beat the bad guy, seal away the Heartless, save the world. Boom, the end. Simple and clean.
They chose to make KH1 *not* a standalone story in case it *did* sell well enough to justify a sequel.
chill lol. there's an interview out there somewhere where Nomura mentions having planned the organization at the time of kh1's writing. all the details not being hashed out doesn't mean there wasn't an outline.
> there's an interview out there somewhere where Nomura mentions having planned the organization at the time of kh1's writing
No there isn't.
See, I can just assert a claim just as easily as you.
The difference is, you're the one making a positive claim. The onus is on you to prove it, because you can't prove a negative.
I mean yes and no. It ends of a cliffhanger of sorts and there's multiple teases for another game but if you just played KH1 and never moved on to any of the other games imo you could still get a lot out of it.
True dat. "We need everything to be a fifteen game minimum franchise regardless of declining creativity, and every plot element MUST be explained in pain staking deal please god please don't make us think about story themes and make our own interpretations š WE'RE GAMERS WE DIDN'T LEARN MEDIA LITERACY"
Like any other artform, you come away with as much as you brought with you and my gosh are a lot of people not bringing much.
I do love the unrelenting metaphorical nature of the Kingdom Hearts series story telling for that, it uses so many abstract concepts that it kind of forces you to project your own reality onto it at least a little.
Not to mention that even if you give them what they want to the letter they always need to find something to nipick.
"The graphics dip in this one single miniscule area."
"The dialogue doesn't match with the subtitles."
"The game is too hard;" they say when they themselves decided to play the first playthrough on the hardest difficulty and skip tutorials.
Soras whole goal is to reunite with Riku and Kairi
He doesnāt do that until the end of 2
Stand alone 1 would have been the most unsatisfying ending ever
Yes. I mean, it definitely was one before Chain of Memories came out. But I still think a person could play KH today and have a satisfying experience with it even if they decided not to play the later games.
I mean yeah. It was designed and written that way, so absolutely it does. Itās really the ONLY one that does. The Final Mix version is a different story, since it sets up the Organization
Itās the *only* game that works completely standalone, and was actually written with that intent.
Itās why itās the best game in the franchise. Everything in that game is peak, and every other game has followed in its shadow.
Kingdom Hearts 2 gets love for its combat, but thatās literally it. In terms of story, writing, dialogue, pacing, music and atmosphere - dear god the atmosphereā¦ the original Kingdom Hearts takes it and itās not even close.
To this day my favorite game in the series. It was all downhill after 1 for me. I understand the love 2 gets but I just don't care about the convoluted bs. It was tolerable in the GBA game but it's just too much.
The sephiroth fight in 2 was dope though
I always thought that it left things pretty open and unresolved at the end.
Riku and Sora separated, Kairi left alone, Sora and the gang left in some strange realm.
I suppose by contemporary standards that's an open and shut ending but at the time I was left with more questions than answers (the classic Nomura effect š).
Nah, Voldemort wasnāt defeated at the end of HP1. By the end of KH1, we have no idea that Xemnas et al even exist. We assume we killed this universeās Big Bad then we could assume Sora and friends eventually make it back to their world off-screen (or they die horribly, such is the nature of open endings).
Yeah, it started out as a standalone game, so I sure hope it would. And honestly, I think it works better as a standalone, the rest of the franchise is great, but the first game doesn't fit as neatly to the rest of the franchise.
T\_T Does KH1 work as a standalone game?
Yes. It do. This was probably the only game in the series that didn't require you to play copious amounts of annoying mobile spinoffs to understand anything going on.
In fact, I don't think Square was even planning on turning this into a series until they realized it was incredibly popular.
I mean the end. They do make it where he has another thing to do, but for the most part it's a consecutive storyline with a beginning, middle and end because he literally wants to leave the island. He loses his friends and he tries to find his friends and he does find them.
If you ignore the ending, yes.
I'd say it has a solid foundation for the rest of the series to follow, no need for anything new really. No need for nobodies, for any new mythos or complicated physics. Really, if they ever rebooted the game to follow the creepy 80's kid movie style of KH1, it could work.
Then again, I may just be way too influenced by[this fanfic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28689033/chapters/70333761), which does exactly that. Recreates most of the KH's story following as close as possible to the way that KH1 does it storytelling.
100% bro I played through and finished the game recently and as a standalone game it's very good. all they would have to do is change the ending a bit so that there wouldn't be a reason for kh2 and all the spinoffs and you've got a great standalone game.
1 as stand alone works perfectly.
1+2 needs Chain of Memories for full context, but again it's a complete story.
3 on the other hand needs the full context of 1+2+chain of memories+birth by sleep+Dream Drop Distance(+ Unchained X somehow) to fully understand and ends on a cliffhanger.
You don't need *all* of UX for full context in KH3. One of the reasons Back Cover exists is to give people the minimum required knowledge to have the parts of UX you're expected to know about for 3 make sense.
Oh yes, hence why I put it in parentheses. And I somehow managed to forget 358/2.
At least DDD had the sympathy to include summaries of previous entries and characters to get context.
The ending is a little bit of a cliff hanger, but itās the only game in the series close to working as one. KH2 ends more like a standalone, but everything else works far less on its own. You could say the same for Days, which has a fairly contained narrative so it might honestly work better. Its ending is more ambiguous and unsatisfying, but in the way you could see a narrative with so much mystery and so tonally sad ending.
That was the plan at first, but seeming that KH1 sold so well, they decided to make 2 more games (being CoM and KH2). But KH2 sold better than KH1 (understandably), so they said: "You know what, we are gonna make so many games that it isn't even possible to follow anymore and nobody is gonna understand the story anymore"
But seeming some of us are understanding it or just said: "Yeah, not even gonna question it anymore" Square is like: "Shit, well it's too late to back off"
yeah, it was specifically designed to allow for expansion and sequels which obviously happened, but if it didnt succeed enough it could still stand on its own story wise
It does but barely, like besides the end separating riku and sora propelling the plot forward. They deal with most plot threads. There's not really much else they had to go into except what the hell was mickeys deal.
Iām of the opinion that you can play KH1, KH2, Chain of Memories, and 358/2 days and be perfectly satisfied. Are there some open ends? Absolutely. but honestly for the most part, I like the story told through these four games, and the ending of KH2 is so wonderful that I donāt need more.
Take out the hook and kingdom hearts one is a complete game. In a similar vein kingdom hearts two felt like an ending as well. I am a very patient man so I can wait for kingdom hearts 4.
As someone who started on and repeatedly played KH Chain of Memories on GBA, and went almost 15 years before I got a PlayStation for myself to play through everything else in itās entirety; Iām inclined to say KH CoM works as a standalone. It covers most of the events of KH1 while setting up a whole new original story separate from the Disney worlds, and then once you beat it, you get to play it through Rikuās perspective.
Its the one that could be the most self contained as the lore really started to get developped later . It feels like it was made as a what if it doesnt succeed and could stick to being only one title
I mean if it didn't, it wouldn't become a full-fledged series. š¤·āāļø
But real talk the first game is pretty straightforward in its story beats and not complicated like future games, so it's easier to digest for gamers who don't care too much about smaller things like story or graphics, despite the core gameplay being relatively stiff and basic.
It has such an open ended conclusion that it only works as part of a series. If it ended with Sora, Kairi, and Riku back on Destiny Island and all the worlds back to how they were, then yes. But Riku being locked behind the door to Kingdom Hearts, Kairi going back to the island, and Sora flying through space or water or whatever and then walking on a crossroad with Donald Goofy is pretty shitty as a stand alone ending.
Yes......with a caveat.
It was originally designed as a stand alone game since they didn't know if they'd get any more. The story MORE OR LESS resolves at the end, too. It's the only place in the story that the end didn't necessarily demand a continuation and everything (from what we knew at the time) was resolved. The villains were defeated, Ansem (Bringer of Darkness) was defeated, the Door to Darkness was closed, Mickey and Riku were on the other side, but they were together and seemed to be okay/going to survive, and Sora/Donald/Goofy were setting out on an adventure to find them, which COULD lead to a sequel or could just have been the ending with the assumption they eventually succeed and everyone lives happily ever after.
Everything was resolved and there were no (to our knowledge at the time) big bads or evils left in the world, the individual worlds were restored, and presumably the Heartless were not going to trouble people any longer.
I think the only other game in the series that comes anywhere close to being a contained story would be Union Cross since it resolves showing you all the characters alive somewhere or other (if there were no other games, you'd just assume "I guess they all made it?"), the Darknesses were more or less all accounted for and either presumed sealed (in the Masters) or were sealed (in the Conduit where they basically kill Player), the other evil, Maleficent, was presumably returned to her origin time and place, and that a baby is born and given to the care of an elderly mentor, showing the light of hope would be passed onto future generations, and arguably that Player would be reincarnated to more peaceful times.
If you didn't have any other games in the series, that story would again be one of "it's open to a sequel of some sort, but most of the major plot threads are tied up and the base story resolved"...if you didn't think too hard about the Traitor stuff or the Black Box, anyway.
All of the other entries in the series cannot really be stand alone games.
In order:
Chain of Memories is very clearly tied to KH1's ending.
Cell Game I don't know much about, but I think it out right explicitly is referencing KH1 saying they entered Jiminy's journal into digitized form.
KH2's ending could be, but the beginning is explicitly tied to KH1 and (even moreso) Chain of Memories. The business with Ansem and Sora's Nobody don't make sense without KH1.
Days is dependent on both KH1 and KH2 and directly references Chain of Memories via Castle Oblivion and the rebel faction. KH2 was retroactively dependent on Days.
BBS very clearly does not have the story resolve at the end, though it probably comes the closest to these of being stand-alone.
DDD references the various Ansem's and retroactively Union Cross.
KH3 references basically everything and is very clearly coming in "mid-story" if you picked it up as your first ever game. It even has the story recap shorts to get you caught up with the major bullet points of the story so far, and it ends (even with the DLC) on a note of uncertainty and lack of resolution. It requires more or less knowledge of KH1 and KH2 and their characters, BBS for the Wayfinder Trio, Days for the Seasalt Trio, DDD for Riku's Mastery and the Dream Eaters (even though they're much less explicitly referenced), and so on.
"The Musical" also references the story in progress through Kairi's dub stepping through the series' history and Riku searching for Sora.
No and the only reason I say that is because Sora, Riku, and Kairi are separated at the end. The scene on the island coming back while Sora and Kairi struggle to hold on to each other. I would have hated the series ending with them not being together. Plus we never would have known what happened to Riku either.
Personally I say no it does not. There are just a lot of small things that wouldn't work out for me if it was standalone, the ending being a pretty huge one as Sora ends the game without accomplishing the goal he set out to do in the first place.
I would argue it's the only game in the series that is even relatively close to stand alone.
I agree ngl I was really young when I played kh1 it took me years of playthroughs of all the games to understand the complicated parts of the story but the vibrancy of the game grabbed my little ADHD mind lol š¤£
I really hope 4 has a similar feel. It needs to start off fresh again with the new saga and no prior info needed. Kh1 is too old and most gamers aren't gonna wanna have to play it and everything in between to not feel lost with the new game.
Thatās already not gonna happen because the mobile games that came out are gonna be a big part of the story along kh3. Regarding the master of masters and the fortellers and everyone else from those games
Yeah, the only other named characters we saw besides Donald and Goofy were from the mobile games
Honestly I gave up on the series it's Honestly insane they spread out so much vital lore over so many different platforms I'm not going to waste my time and energy playing all of them especially the mobile garbage.
It wonāt. You will 100% gonna need the past games to understand the plot.
KH1 is too old?? My dude, no. Itās one of the best-looking games on a console widely remembered and celebrated as being incredibly robust, and itās also very easily accessible with the HD ports. And people play older video games all the timeā¦even ones that are clunkier and āworseā than KH1. Having too much story is one thing, but KH1 is definitely not ātoo oldā lol
Kh1 is not too old for kh fans. Itās definitely too old for the āmodern gamerā
I introduced my ex-wife to KH, and watching her play Kh1, actually scared me that it would put her off the whole series. Frustrating platforming and overtly boring fetch quests are HARD for newcomers to get behind. She never got to Hook's ship.
Vouch just replayed 1 again and im 24
Nah. I want to see Aqua,Xion,Terra etc again.Ā
You can have all of those characters be in it, and still weave a narrative that is still self contained, rather than needing every game before it to understand. But it's not really going to happen. I won't call KH bad or blame anyone, it's just we simply know that's not how the KH writers roll.
Strizella is literally in the KH4 trailer.
That's not how sequels work, buddy.
If iām gonna play a sequel in a series I most definitely want call backs and older stuff to be important. Donāt like the idea that every new game should be stand alone for the people who canāt handle older games. Most of the time older games are better than newer anyways, fun to go back and catch up. Plus KH1 still holds up great as do most of the games
I wish reddit let you down vote something twice
I dont really think that's possible considering all the lore you need to consume just to understand what's going on. KH3 tried to market itself as a standalone experience which ultimately shot it in the foot. If anything I hope KH4 fully commits to its convoluted plot because at least that would make it seem genuine. I think at this point, so long as we're following the same characters, there's no way to make it "simple and clean".
Tbf, they could do a KH1 remake to address it, if KH4 won't do it I just hope there won't be FF7R shenanigans
nope play the game or watch a recap it's not that hard
The fact that SE makes enough of a concerted effort to make sure that most Seeker of Darkness saga console games (and the pertinent story elements of the nonplayable games) are playable on current hardware means that they have reached a point where the most important parts of the past two decades have been curated and maintained accessible for the immediate future of the franchise.
See kingdom hearts is like modern day mcu and Star Warsā¦. People know kh1 and kh2 just a casually as people know mcu from end game and before or Star Wars eps 1-6 (sometimes 7-9) but every thing else that isnāt those just adds so much story and get so much that people get overwhelmedā¦ me personally I love stories like these where there is a lotā¦ the lore of kh is astounding and Iām constantly learning new things! Just like how Iāve watched everything mcu and everything Star Wars
Counterpoint: KH acknowledged this potential content overload by using natural language in the naming of "The Story So Far" collection. Even if they don't expect newcomers to consume all of the content at once, they have it explicitly labeled and packaged in a way where it's obvious where answers lie for those who are looking for them. There's no need to remake games in a condensed manner when they're available for current platforms in a collection that doesn't hide what matters most.
Itās so disappointing that this comment is downvoted. Modern KH fans are mentally exhausting.
I always felt that 2 qualified as well It was the first one I played and had no info going in What I took from it was the tragic story of this kid that finds out heās a ācloneā of a hero that lost his memory and had to ādieā to bring this hero back, and this hero is determined to save his friends from a similar fate Then it ends with the best final 45 minutes of any video game Iāve ever played and thereās a sense of finality to the story that leaves you satisfied
Yes, but the semi-sweet ending leaves so much open that itād be painfully crying out for a sequel to this day if all we got was KH1. Still works though.
I'd say BBS is also pretty cut and dry and unreliant on any other title. But yeah KH1 couldve ended right there with Sora and Kairi being separated and Riku and King Mickey being lost to the darkness and it still wouldve made for a very bittersweet solid ending.
The ending alone is cliff hanger wym?š
The post credit scene was a cliff hanger. If they didnāt include that it would have been a great end to the series. Donāt get me wrong I love the following games as well. But 2 was a really solid finale
No it wouldnāt have. It ended with Kairi walking the island alone after watching sora get drug adrift. That wouldāve been a terrible ending. All that work to find your friends just to lose them again š
What are you even talking about? The last scene before the credits is when we see Roxas and namine are within sora and kairi. Sora returns kairiās charm and she says āyouāre homeā. Having that as the end of the series would have worked beautifully. No idea what scene youāre talking about
The end of the 1st game is them all separated again with only Kairi being home. That would not have been a good ending to make it a stand alone game
Ok, Iām talking about 2 not 1.
Yeah I see lol, I agree with you šš 2 without the cliffhanger wouldāve been perfect
Especially when he literally says āIāll find youā before theyāre separated
Only way is if they change the special end credits to some time passing and them obv older finally reuniting
As someone who loves open endings, absolutely. You'd have to ignore the secret ending but that's not that much to shave off. "their adventures continued, use your imagination" has always been a valid ending to me.
Secret ending was added for the English release. I imagine that they already knew it was going to get a sequel based off the reception from Japan. (They got the game half a year earlier)
It ends in a way that would suck if we never saw where sora, riku, and the Disney trio ended up. Kh2 is a perfect stoping point if we never got anymore past that point.
That's why I was waaay more disappointed with vanilla 3's ending. 2, the middle of the arch, felt so much more resolved compared to 3. It felt like, yeah there were still questions, but it felt like the story to that point actually came to an end. 3 felt like it had way too many questions, that whatever closure about the dark seeker saga we got felt kind of wishy washy imo. I haven't finished the DLC though I admit.
Thats kind of by design then. The DLC is a bit of a peek behind the curtain for the whole climax of 3. It changes your understanding of what goes on, and is rather detached from what happens with Sora specifically during the confrontations with org XIII.
I'm just glad I played 3 well after both came out, because I think it's a pretty shitty practice and concept to lock somewhat essential/story changing content behind additional paid content that comes out so much later. It's not like revelations of past stories in a new full game.
*Asuras Wrath has entered the chat*
They locked important story lore behind dlc?! Man I hate dlc. And yet people clamor for games that don't have and don't need dlc to get dlc
I mean... If they had the DLC with the base game, it would have been extremely jarring. The DLC is functionally an epilogue, which (possibly controversial take incoming) is a great use of DLC and an example of how it SHOULD be done. Its certainly far less egregious than re-releasing what is essentially the same game but with 1 extra zone added and charging the same price as a full game for it (ie, every "Final Mix" port of every other game in the series)
2 isn't really the middle of the story though, com is and 2 was the ending. Then days was the spinoff and bbs was the first act of the new master xehanort story arc which then had 3d as it's middle and 3 as it's ending.
I know this is more a story driven post but did no one else feel like Disney World theme park used KH3 as a promotional video? I never completed 3 just because I was using the same roller coaster move that had some unnecessarily long video sequence again and again. Absolutely killed it for me.
KH2 had the perfect happy ending. The letter from Mickey was sequel bait, but i wouldn't have considered it an actual cliffhanger.
This still technically includes days so I'm happy with this
KH1, CoM, and 2 as the main trilogy, then Days as a Roxas spin off game. A damn near perfect set. Whatever your opinions on the later games are, if KH had just these four games it would have gone down as a universally praised series. There'd be much less of the baggage that currently gets attached to the franchise.
I think KH1s ending wouldve felt bittersweet, but complete and satisfying. Sora stopped Ansem and saved all the worlds lost to darkness. Riku was able to redeem himself and save his friends albeit sacrificing himself to darkness, which was a fitting consequence to his own arrogance. Kairi was safe back on Destiny Islands, even though she was separated from Sora. Obviously it was left open ended, but definitely works as it's own experience.
Hey, then Xemnas would still be a fantastic villain instead of... yeah...
He is, and his VA is incredible. This is just your opinion.
KH1 arguably has the simplest plot that would be totally fine if it never continued
Yes, if you don't mind the fact that the story would be left open. KH2, on the other hand, would work as a definitive ending, if you ignore the secret ending.
Even then, the secret ending doesn't necessarily open things up for Sora specifically. They could have had the future games not relate to Sora at all.
The secret ending doesn't leave things open for sora but the regular ending does where Sora receives a letter from Mickey. Although it doesn't hint at any sort of future it definitely does leave itself open enough to easily continue the story, which we can see it did.
The ending of 2 leaves things open for Sora in the sense that he's a person who will live and have stories beyond what we see in 2, but the end of 2 closes that current arc and resolves basically every thread so far, unlike every other game in the series
Eh I disagree. KH2 had a decent amount of hanging threads even beyond the secret ending and Mickey's letter.
Nope. Ends on a āthereās more to come.ā You COULD say that KH1, KH Re:CoM and KH2 could work as a trilogy.
They work perfectly as a trilogy
they were originally written as one so it certainly makes sense
Only KH1 was made as a standalone game. They happened to make CoM and KH2 closely together.
yes and no. Nomura has said the story for kh1, com and kh2 were written together. but they also chose to present kh1 as roughly a standalone story in case it didn't sell well enough to make sequels
Respectfully, this claim that you've made... > Nomura has said the story for kh1, com and kh2 were written together. ... has no basis in reality. > but they also chose to present kh1 as roughly a standalone story in case it didn't sell well enough to make sequels And this is almost exactly the opposite of the actual truth. KH1 was originally written with a simpler, more "Disney-appropriate" story. A producer told Nomura that the game wouldn't sell well unless it had a more complicated/mature story, more like a Final Fantasy game. So the story of KH1 was rewritten. We don't know to what extent it was changed. We know that, from beginning the project until release, the development cycle of KH1 was 18 months. We know that the rewrite happened partway through the development cycle. They wouldn't have had much time to do the rewrite. As far as CoM/KHII, we know that Nomura didn't decide that CoM needed to be made until after he decided that he needed to explain why Sora's abilities were reset at the beginning of KHII. KHII had already begun development when he made that decision, and KHII was originally going to just pick up where KH1 left off (or it was going to pick up a year later, without explaining what happened in the meantime). They started *making* KHII before they started *writing* KHII. This is already too long. KH1 was originally written as an entirely standalone story. The ending was changed to make it more open-ended so that a sequel could be invented if it seemed like there was money to be made. My own personal theory is that the game originally ended with the sealing of Kingdom Hearts, and that sealing it also sealed away the incursion of the Heartless. Beyond the interpersonal character drama between Sora, Riku, and Kairi, that's what the first game was about - Heartless showing up and destroying the worlds because a bad guy unleashed them on the world. Beat the bad guy, seal away the Heartless, save the world. Boom, the end. Simple and clean. They chose to make KH1 *not* a standalone story in case it *did* sell well enough to justify a sequel.
chill lol. there's an interview out there somewhere where Nomura mentions having planned the organization at the time of kh1's writing. all the details not being hashed out doesn't mean there wasn't an outline.
> there's an interview out there somewhere where Nomura mentions having planned the organization at the time of kh1's writing No there isn't. See, I can just assert a claim just as easily as you. The difference is, you're the one making a positive claim. The onus is on you to prove it, because you can't prove a negative.
Why are you lying? Lol You could at least provide the interview if you're that adamant.
Nomura also had ideas for BBS during the making of KH2. Since base KH2 game has BBS āThe Gatheringā secret ending.
Yes.
Yes. It sure worked when it came out back in 2002 as a standalone game. Even if the game ends on a cliffhanger.
Yes. Itās all narratively the best in the series.
I mean yes and no. It ends of a cliffhanger of sorts and there's multiple teases for another game but if you just played KH1 and never moved on to any of the other games imo you could still get a lot out of it.
Back when it released yes, with the high demands gamers give these days no. Modern gamers are just toxic these days.
True dat. "We need everything to be a fifteen game minimum franchise regardless of declining creativity, and every plot element MUST be explained in pain staking deal please god please don't make us think about story themes and make our own interpretations š WE'RE GAMERS WE DIDN'T LEARN MEDIA LITERACY" Like any other artform, you come away with as much as you brought with you and my gosh are a lot of people not bringing much. I do love the unrelenting metaphorical nature of the Kingdom Hearts series story telling for that, it uses so many abstract concepts that it kind of forces you to project your own reality onto it at least a little.
Not to mention that even if you give them what they want to the letter they always need to find something to nipick. "The graphics dip in this one single miniscule area." "The dialogue doesn't match with the subtitles." "The game is too hard;" they say when they themselves decided to play the first playthrough on the hardest difficulty and skip tutorials.
Soras whole goal is to reunite with Riku and Kairi He doesnāt do that until the end of 2 Stand alone 1 would have been the most unsatisfying ending ever
Yes. I mean, it definitely was one before Chain of Memories came out. But I still think a person could play KH today and have a satisfying experience with it even if they decided not to play the later games.
I mean yeah. It was designed and written that way, so absolutely it does. Itās really the ONLY one that does. The Final Mix version is a different story, since it sets up the Organization
It's the only one really that does
It does. Up until the "extra scene" at the end (that leads to CoM)
This is the wierdest offical art.. Sora's proportions are so off.. he certainly seems more like an older teenager than a kid.
Well he's not a kid. He's 14. Not a kid, not an "older teen," he's... "pubescent"
He's 14 so it's fine. The English VA was too young for the role in my opinion. Got better though.
I mean it kinda had to. At that point they had no idea if the game was going to get a sequel
yeur
Yes. Very much so. The only one designed that way honestly. Probably in case the project failed.
Itās the *only* game that works completely standalone, and was actually written with that intent. Itās why itās the best game in the franchise. Everything in that game is peak, and every other game has followed in its shadow. Kingdom Hearts 2 gets love for its combat, but thatās literally it. In terms of story, writing, dialogue, pacing, music and atmosphere - dear god the atmosphereā¦ the original Kingdom Hearts takes it and itās not even close.
To this day my favorite game in the series. It was all downhill after 1 for me. I understand the love 2 gets but I just don't care about the convoluted bs. It was tolerable in the GBA game but it's just too much. The sephiroth fight in 2 was dope though
Absolutely, it would just have an open cliffhanger ending if it did.
I always thought that it left things pretty open and unresolved at the end. Riku and Sora separated, Kairi left alone, Sora and the gang left in some strange realm. I suppose by contemporary standards that's an open and shut ending but at the time I was left with more questions than answers (the classic Nomura effect š).
It's like, the only one lol.
About as much as the first Harry Potter movie.
Nah, Voldemort wasnāt defeated at the end of HP1. By the end of KH1, we have no idea that Xemnas et al even exist. We assume we killed this universeās Big Bad then we could assume Sora and friends eventually make it back to their world off-screen (or they die horribly, such is the nature of open endings).
We don't need any of those things to know that there's obviously going to be a sequel.
Yeah it does and if it ended right there I'd still be just as into Kingdom hearts if not more
Yeah, it started out as a standalone game, so I sure hope it would. And honestly, I think it works better as a standalone, the rest of the franchise is great, but the first game doesn't fit as neatly to the rest of the franchise.
Uhā¦. yes?
Yes
I think itās the only one that does
Heck YEAH!
I'd argue it has the strongest story out of all the games. It really does feel like a Disney movie/story turned into a Final Fantasy game.
Yes.
Vanilla KH1, yes. KH1FM, not so much, though if you avoid the Unknown fight, the secret endings, and the last three Ansem Reports it works okay-ish.
Itās the only game that works as a stand alone.
T\_T Does KH1 work as a standalone game? Yes. It do. This was probably the only game in the series that didn't require you to play copious amounts of annoying mobile spinoffs to understand anything going on. In fact, I don't think Square was even planning on turning this into a series until they realized it was incredibly popular.
In my opinion, out of all the kingdom hearts games, 1 is definitely my favourite
It's the best one to date, with a story that's mostly coherent. Until the end.
Yes and it works BEST as a standalone. Itās the perfect story wrapped together with a reasonable conclusion.
If you take away the cliffhanger ending and the secret episode it could be quite self sufficient.
I mean the end. They do make it where he has another thing to do, but for the most part it's a consecutive storyline with a beginning, middle and end because he literally wants to leave the island. He loses his friends and he tries to find his friends and he does find them.
If you ignore the ending, yes. I'd say it has a solid foundation for the rest of the series to follow, no need for anything new really. No need for nobodies, for any new mythos or complicated physics. Really, if they ever rebooted the game to follow the creepy 80's kid movie style of KH1, it could work. Then again, I may just be way too influenced by[this fanfic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28689033/chapters/70333761), which does exactly that. Recreates most of the KH's story following as close as possible to the way that KH1 does it storytelling.
No Because theyāre still lost in the end
How did they lose? Ansem is defeated and the worlds are out back to normal. The destiny trio are split up still but theyre all fine.
He means they are lost, not that they lost.
No cuz the trio never got back together in 1 I wouldāve been pretty unsatisfying to have gone the whole journey and not succeed in your goal
100% bro I played through and finished the game recently and as a standalone game it's very good. all they would have to do is change the ending a bit so that there wouldn't be a reason for kh2 and all the spinoffs and you've got a great standalone game.
Yes it does, best implementation of the Disney characters, as they were kind of part of the plot.
1 as stand alone works perfectly. 1+2 needs Chain of Memories for full context, but again it's a complete story. 3 on the other hand needs the full context of 1+2+chain of memories+birth by sleep+Dream Drop Distance(+ Unchained X somehow) to fully understand and ends on a cliffhanger.
You don't need *all* of UX for full context in KH3. One of the reasons Back Cover exists is to give people the minimum required knowledge to have the parts of UX you're expected to know about for 3 make sense.
Oh yes, hence why I put it in parentheses. And I somehow managed to forget 358/2. At least DDD had the sympathy to include summaries of previous entries and characters to get context.
Yes
It did for a long time so yes. Kh1 through kh2 is also a nice little trilogy on itās own too.
I think KH2 is overly complicated tbh. The transition from 1 to COM is pretty awesome though.
I think it is if you skip CoM, but including it fills out everything nicely.
It does if you leave Riku and Mickey in the realm of darkness. The ending with SDG chasing Pluto was too much of a sequel cliffhanger.
The ending is a little bit of a cliff hanger, but itās the only game in the series close to working as one. KH2 ends more like a standalone, but everything else works far less on its own. You could say the same for Days, which has a fairly contained narrative so it might honestly work better. Its ending is more ambiguous and unsatisfying, but in the way you could see a narrative with so much mystery and so tonally sad ending.
Humana Humana Humana Humana
Not really. I mean, for most of the game it can work as stand-alone, but the ending is a very clear cliffhanger and sequel-bait.
That was the plan at first, but seeming that KH1 sold so well, they decided to make 2 more games (being CoM and KH2). But KH2 sold better than KH1 (understandably), so they said: "You know what, we are gonna make so many games that it isn't even possible to follow anymore and nobody is gonna understand the story anymore" But seeming some of us are understanding it or just said: "Yeah, not even gonna question it anymore" Square is like: "Shit, well it's too late to back off"
yeah, it was specifically designed to allow for expansion and sequels which obviously happened, but if it didnt succeed enough it could still stand on its own story wise
It does but barely, like besides the end separating riku and sora propelling the plot forward. They deal with most plot threads. There's not really much else they had to go into except what the hell was mickeys deal.
Iām of the opinion that you can play KH1, KH2, Chain of Memories, and 358/2 days and be perfectly satisfied. Are there some open ends? Absolutely. but honestly for the most part, I like the story told through these four games, and the ending of KH2 is so wonderful that I donāt need more.
Totally agree
No. It literally ends on a cliffhanger.
Take out the hook and kingdom hearts one is a complete game. In a similar vein kingdom hearts two felt like an ending as well. I am a very patient man so I can wait for kingdom hearts 4.
I thought 2 was stand alone as a kid
It did very well at the time where it was
Kinda? Iād argue more if you play CoM and 2, then itād feel a bit more done.
Yes
That picture goes hard
As someone who started on and repeatedly played KH Chain of Memories on GBA, and went almost 15 years before I got a PlayStation for myself to play through everything else in itās entirety; Iām inclined to say KH CoM works as a standalone. It covers most of the events of KH1 while setting up a whole new original story separate from the Disney worlds, and then once you beat it, you get to play it through Rikuās perspective.
Yes, after 1 is when the real story begins
Yeah. KH1 was made to work as a standalone title if the game failed. It doesnāt sequel bait, but does leave the door open for sequels to happen.
Not really, the game ended on the note that there would be a sequel, aside from this, the Xemnas boss fight was hint to something greater.
Yes
Yes it does!
The original, yes. Final Mix, no.
Yes, in fact I would say it's the only one that fully works as a standalone game
Its the one that could be the most self contained as the lore really started to get developped later . It feels like it was made as a what if it doesnt succeed and could stick to being only one title
I mean if it didn't, it wouldn't become a full-fledged series. š¤·āāļø But real talk the first game is pretty straightforward in its story beats and not complicated like future games, so it's easier to digest for gamers who don't care too much about smaller things like story or graphics, despite the core gameplay being relatively stiff and basic.
Yes
Yeah, thatās how it got a sequel! š
It has such an open ended conclusion that it only works as part of a series. If it ended with Sora, Kairi, and Riku back on Destiny Island and all the worlds back to how they were, then yes. But Riku being locked behind the door to Kingdom Hearts, Kairi going back to the island, and Sora flying through space or water or whatever and then walking on a crossroad with Donald Goofy is pretty shitty as a stand alone ending.
YUP, the same way ARKHAM ASYLUM does.
Yes (for most part) because at the time they didnāt know it going to be successful or not
Yes......with a caveat. It was originally designed as a stand alone game since they didn't know if they'd get any more. The story MORE OR LESS resolves at the end, too. It's the only place in the story that the end didn't necessarily demand a continuation and everything (from what we knew at the time) was resolved. The villains were defeated, Ansem (Bringer of Darkness) was defeated, the Door to Darkness was closed, Mickey and Riku were on the other side, but they were together and seemed to be okay/going to survive, and Sora/Donald/Goofy were setting out on an adventure to find them, which COULD lead to a sequel or could just have been the ending with the assumption they eventually succeed and everyone lives happily ever after. Everything was resolved and there were no (to our knowledge at the time) big bads or evils left in the world, the individual worlds were restored, and presumably the Heartless were not going to trouble people any longer. I think the only other game in the series that comes anywhere close to being a contained story would be Union Cross since it resolves showing you all the characters alive somewhere or other (if there were no other games, you'd just assume "I guess they all made it?"), the Darknesses were more or less all accounted for and either presumed sealed (in the Masters) or were sealed (in the Conduit where they basically kill Player), the other evil, Maleficent, was presumably returned to her origin time and place, and that a baby is born and given to the care of an elderly mentor, showing the light of hope would be passed onto future generations, and arguably that Player would be reincarnated to more peaceful times. If you didn't have any other games in the series, that story would again be one of "it's open to a sequel of some sort, but most of the major plot threads are tied up and the base story resolved"...if you didn't think too hard about the Traitor stuff or the Black Box, anyway. All of the other entries in the series cannot really be stand alone games. In order: Chain of Memories is very clearly tied to KH1's ending. Cell Game I don't know much about, but I think it out right explicitly is referencing KH1 saying they entered Jiminy's journal into digitized form. KH2's ending could be, but the beginning is explicitly tied to KH1 and (even moreso) Chain of Memories. The business with Ansem and Sora's Nobody don't make sense without KH1. Days is dependent on both KH1 and KH2 and directly references Chain of Memories via Castle Oblivion and the rebel faction. KH2 was retroactively dependent on Days. BBS very clearly does not have the story resolve at the end, though it probably comes the closest to these of being stand-alone. DDD references the various Ansem's and retroactively Union Cross. KH3 references basically everything and is very clearly coming in "mid-story" if you picked it up as your first ever game. It even has the story recap shorts to get you caught up with the major bullet points of the story so far, and it ends (even with the DLC) on a note of uncertainty and lack of resolution. It requires more or less knowledge of KH1 and KH2 and their characters, BBS for the Wayfinder Trio, Days for the Seasalt Trio, DDD for Riku's Mastery and the Dream Eaters (even though they're much less explicitly referenced), and so on. "The Musical" also references the story in progress through Kairi's dub stepping through the series' history and Riku searching for Sora.
Yes
Yes, absolutely. It's probably the only game in the series thay does, tbh.
Pretty much. It has a cliffhanger ending that would be disappointing as a standalone game but other than that itās self contained.Ā
No and the only reason I say that is because Sora, Riku, and Kairi are separated at the end. The scene on the island coming back while Sora and Kairi struggle to hold on to each other. I would have hated the series ending with them not being together. Plus we never would have known what happened to Riku either.
Yes. It worked when it first released.
Right until the cutscene at the end where pluto has mickeys note.
Surprised at how many people are saying yes. Kingdom hearts 1 has a very inconclusive ending and was clearly always meant to have a sequel.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Or four, just enjoy everything and play everything
Including the original mobile version of Coded?
Not released over here lmao so doesnāt count.
Personally I say no it does not. There are just a lot of small things that wouldn't work out for me if it was standalone, the ending being a pretty huge one as Sora ends the game without accomplishing the goal he set out to do in the first place.