And then in DDD they were like, the keyblade actually chose Riku lol
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Saying Kingdom Hearts has a confusing story strikes me as disingenuous
- Thread starter malyse
- Start date
I still say the level of investment in the series plays a factor to. I played the entire series with both PS4 collections in release order within a month and still don't know past the basic plot outline (This includes watching the movies included). With other details needing to be filled in with friends who are more well-versed in the extra stuff. The game has a lot of twists, turns, and call-backs which probably play into being hard to follow.
Isn't this basically the plot of Harry Potter Book 7 (all the way down to the villain being fixated on having a specific number of them), except in Kingdom Hearts the Horcruxes are fully sentient vessels?
Nah man, I've been a fan of the series for 16 years and still have no idea what is going on with the overall plot. I get the narrative when it comes to the individual characters, but the overall plot is a fucking mess.
It's a plot that just expands to integrate whatever spinoff comes next. Any one individual game is easy to follow and, if you play them all in short succession, easy enough to follow, but the story has no right being as big as it is.
Like, if Xion becomes an integral character of KH3 (she's on the cover), what does that add to the plot, exactly?
Like, if Xion becomes an integral character of KH3 (she's on the cover), what does that add to the plot, exactly?
3D revealed new stuff regarding Organization XIII, but it really didn't move the story forward beyond coming up with a excuse for Sora to return to zero in KH3.
This.
Makes 358/2 not look so worthless.
To bad it's bar NONE the worst KH game.
The series has:
- Dozens and dozens of characters for the main plot that has one or multiple connections between each other
- Time travel shanenigans
- Mcguffins
- Clones
- Clones of clones
- Evergrowing elements of nonsensical lore
- Multiple Bigger Bads being add one after another.
- etc...
I mean, this is convoluted, this is the very definition of convoluted and confusing.
Every piece of media can be condensed in a few words, that dosn't mean shit.
- Dozens and dozens of characters for the main plot that has one or multiple connections between each other
- Time travel shanenigans
- Mcguffins
- Clones
- Clones of clones
- Evergrowing elements of nonsensical lore
- Multiple Bigger Bads being add one after another.
- etc...
I mean, this is convoluted, this is the very definition of convoluted and confusing.
Every piece of media can be condensed in a few words, that dosn't mean shit.
It was perfectly fine and easy to follow up until DDD where it really does go off the rails. The games beat you over the head with their plot and jargon so much, you'd have to really be trying to get confused. DDD really goes overboard with time travel shenanigans and retcons.
It's not necessarily confusing. It's just bad. Much of it reads like one of those fanfics you'd find on DeviantArt.
Era is really fucking salty about KHIII not being exclusively about the games they played and not the ones they dismissed
I'm going to quote myself from an earlier thread on Kingdom Hearts' storytelling:
Also, explanations don't necessarily make something less confusing. Overly explaining something can make something more confusing because there's more stuff to keep track of. The television series "Lost" ended up having explanations for most things by the end of the series, but that didn't make it into something that wasn't confusing. You had to remember a million things to make sense of the narrative. I was one of those people, but I sounded like a lunatic when I tried to explain what the smoke monster was.
One more thing....I don't understand for the life of me what a heart is. Alright, it's the source of emotion. Nobodies lack hearts, so they lack emotions. If they lack emotions, then why do they crave hearts and emotion? Craving is an emotion. This series is ridiculous.
And what's Kingdom Hearts itself? The heart of all worlds...how do worlds have emotional cores, what does that even mean? How can there be more than one Kingdom Hearts (eg the one the Nobodies created in The World That Never Was?). How can you make a "heart of all worlds" out of the hearts of Emblem Heartless, what does that even mean? And again, why do the Nobodies even care, if they lack emotions?
Convoluted means "extremely complex and difficult to follow", whereas confusing means "bewildering or perplexing". If you're granting that Kingdom Hearts' storyline is convoluted - that is, difficult to follow - then it's safe to say it is confusing too. It's difficult to follow (convoluted) because the overwhelming onslaught of terms and clones and time travel and lore is bewildering (confusing).
Also, explanations don't necessarily make something less confusing. Overly explaining something can make something more confusing because there's more stuff to keep track of. The television series "Lost" ended up having explanations for most things by the end of the series, but that didn't make it into something that wasn't confusing. You had to remember a million things to make sense of the narrative. I was one of those people, but I sounded like a lunatic when I tried to explain what the smoke monster was.
One more thing....I don't understand for the life of me what a heart is. Alright, it's the source of emotion. Nobodies lack hearts, so they lack emotions. If they lack emotions, then why do they crave hearts and emotion? Craving is an emotion. This series is ridiculous.
And what's Kingdom Hearts itself? The heart of all worlds...how do worlds have emotional cores, what does that even mean? How can there be more than one Kingdom Hearts (eg the one the Nobodies created in The World That Never Was?). How can you make a "heart of all worlds" out of the hearts of Emblem Heartless, what does that even mean? And again, why do the Nobodies even care, if they lack emotions?
Last edited:
OP
OP
I have never in my life used convoluted to mean confusing. Can't understand and hard to understand are a degree of nuance that I find quite distinct.
It is.
And is bad. Surprises me that Disney has involvement on it. This company made Fantasia for God's sake!
But it's not because is confused or bad that the people can't like it. Gameplay is like forty percent of the experience anyway.
And is bad. Surprises me that Disney has involvement on it. This company made Fantasia for God's sake!
But it's not because is confused or bad that the people can't like it. Gameplay is like forty percent of the experience anyway.
He is going to start 3 at level 1 because Xehanort almost possessed his body in 3D and that somehow removed a lot of his abilities.
All you have to do is play 16 games of complete anime absurdity over 7 systems and then watch a few 30 minute recaps to be safe. Not confusing at all.
Not as weird as people pretending Kingdom Heart's story isnt an absolute mess that even if it makes 100% sense was still so poorly told it wouldn't matter that much.
I don't disagree with it being convoluted but what do you mean by anime garbage? I can't think of a single anime anything like it.
KHs convolutedness is part of what makes unique and great. I don't see why anyone is denying that fact. It's a super complex story.
That's about how I feel
There was some order issues, like if you reboot KH there should probably be some BBS stuff in KH, and maybe like a couple games don't really need to exist narrative wise but generally it was fine.
KH I is obvious.
KH CoM he's in Castle of Oblivion where he "forgets" all his abilities.
KH II takes place after he awakens from a year sleeping.
KH DDD it's about his training to become a keyblade master so he starts fresh.
KH III he needs to recover his previous abilities thanks to everything that happens towards DDD end.
I have never in my life used convoluted to mean confusing. Can't understand and hard to understand are a degree of nuance that I find quite distinct.
What are the other words that come up when you click the "More" link under the first definition?
The time travel boils down to "Xehanort sent one of his vessels back in time to gather all the others." It's implied that the process is similar to the one Sora used to dive into the dream worlds.
You don't need to think about it more deeply than that.
We could stop disagreeing about that and just agree that it's bad then.
Y'all ever see a take so bad that you're immediately forced to go to sleep?
Yeah, it sucked
Then Square enix realized everyone liked everyone else more sora and then made riku the best character and then gave him and others keyblade
Well, you see Donald Duck and Goofy met with Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean, this being after fighting Cloud from FF7 who was being tricked by Hades from the Hercules movie...
Yeah each game just piss me even more each time they are over, they just open more door and never close them.... BBS was the worse, i was like nice a prequel that will explain origin, yeah sure you just open up like 10 new doors.... And forget DDD just destroy everything....
I can't imagine KH3 can wrap everything well... the game need a perfect work book like Xenogears... At this point i think they are just trolling us, imagine a timeline right now with DDD.....
DDD is confusing as hell and I can't for the life of me understand why so many fans have started to downplay that.
It's starting to feel like Souls fans who claim those games are easy.
Also if people were being disingenuous about finding it confusing then that would mean they're lying, which is just a bizarre accusation to make. You seriously think people are conspiring to spread the lie that the series is confusing? That's insanely paranoid.
It's starting to feel like Souls fans who claim those games are easy.
Also if people were being disingenuous about finding it confusing then that would mean they're lying, which is just a bizarre accusation to make. You seriously think people are conspiring to spread the lie that the series is confusing? That's insanely paranoid.
I'm sorry OP but the story IS confusing, especially if you try to encompass everything from the spin-offs. There are characters with the same faces but different names, characters with the same name but different faces, it's a mess by any standard.
The only game series I can really compare in terms of just how labyrinthine the storytelling is Metal Gear.
The only game series I can really compare in terms of just how labyrinthine the storytelling is Metal Gear.
I have never in my life used convoluted to mean confusing. Can't understand and hard to understand are a degree of nuance that I find quite distinct.
Your reasoning is convoluted and confusing.
There is a way to tell compelling, complex stories .... Square Enix does not know how to do that anymore. This is exceptionally so with KH.
I don't think people would have as much of an issue with KH's story if it wasn't spread over, at the very minimum, 5 full 30+ games of varying quality, 3 cut-scene movies and 1 prologue game. It's this perfect mix of convoluted singular games being tied into a convoluted franchise that is very difficult to digest in a succinct fashion. For people who haven't grown up with the franchise that can get very confusing as you're forced to keep track of tons of different plot threads, characters, concepts, etc.
Even the very basic question of why the beings with hearts but no bodies are called "Heartless" whilst the beings with bodies but no hearts are called "Nobodies" shows how confusing the plot can be.
Even the very basic question of why the beings with hearts but no bodies are called "Heartless" whilst the beings with bodies but no hearts are called "Nobodies" shows how confusing the plot can be.
If it's convoluted and poorly told, that kinda makes it confusing, yeah?
Just because the games are now readily available and they strive to answer some questions doesn't mean the story isn't confusing.
Just because the games are now readily available and they strive to answer some questions doesn't mean the story isn't confusing.