So I’m committed to the title of this two-parter (I pretty much have to, since there’s one already in the books), but there’s a question that needs to be answered. At the end of the day, does Kingdom Hearts make me sadder than it does madder? Or does it make me madder than it does sadder? Let’s start with a preliminary test.
*googles Kingdom Hearts Recusant’s Sigil*
*inarticulate groaning*
I feel like that clip is an accurate representation of going through each successive KH game past the first. But anyway...
I was going to save this for the very end, but I think I’ll start with it instead: I can’t wait for Kingdom Hearts III. Not because I’m excited or anticipating a great time, oh no. It’s because, at long last, this saga is going to end. There’s no way that the franchise will bow out gracefully, never to be touched again. Squeenix has put in too much time and money, as have fans -- people who also have a deep emotional investment. It’s all been leading up to this, the definitive cap to the Xehanort Saga. No more setup, no more teasing for future games. All questions answered, all plot threads tied up, all hands on deck.
That’s the dream, at least. But I hope it comes to pass. And why wouldn’t it? This is Squeenix’s one and only chance to blow everything else out of the water. The tech behind a KH game has never been more advanced. The resources have never been more gathered. The hype has never been more…more. We’ve been waiting for this game for well over a decade, so that we can move on to other things. I’m okay with Squeenix keeping the franchise alive (albeit with qualifiers the size of the sun, given the other franchise they’ve run into the ground), because it’s a case of the ends justifying the means.
In this case, “the ends” means that they can get a fresh start. Or to put it a bit more harshly, a scorched-earth policy is the only way they can salvage the franchise. Squeenix, burn it all down and start the fuck over.
I accept that KHIII is too far along to edit too heavily. Come what may, we’ll see how this saga ends -- unless Squeenix pulls a Squeenix and decides to throw in DLC. Or worse yet, decides to fill in an incomplete game with DLC. Or worse yet, decides to make the ending and/or major plot points DLC. But even in those awful, awful scenarios, at least KHIII will be the vehicle for what I hope is the finale. After that? It’s time for introspection. Analysis. Reflection on what went wrong, and how to improve for next time. And there most likely will be a next time, for the reasons mentioned above and more.
How will they go about it? Good question. It’s too early to say, but Lord knows the company has plenty of options. Bring some new writers on board. Take lessons from their contemporaries at home and abroad. Give Tetsuya Nomura a break for once (seriously, the guy didn’t even know he was working on the FF7 remake until the trailer reveal). Understand why people like both the franchise and the source material they pull from. Pay attention to what critics are saying, be they professionals in the industry, YouTube essayists, or just random afro-headed bloggers whose dogs wake him up at four in the morning. Again, plenty of options.
I say all this, because I’ve been reviewing as much KH content as I can (mostly thanks to the Rising Superstream). The more I review, the more I realize that the KH situation is dire. Bleak. I’ve said before that “sometimes I wonder if KH1 is the only good one”, which in turn made me take some heat. (Chain of Memories is good, apparently…though my brother played the HD re-release, and called it “a fucking mess”.) And yeah, I admit that maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe I’m just blinded by nostalgia, and corrupted by my grudge against this one company. On the other hand? HAVE YOU SEEN WHAT’S IN THESE GAMES?
It really says a lot when “time travel” is the least complex part of a franchise’s mythos. I mean granted that’s really applicable for KH, because boy does the time travel aspect really jam an ice pick in your eye. But the series’ reputation for being convoluted is well-deserved -- and rather than wind down as the road to KHIII approaches its terminus, the devs have seemingly gone out of their way to crank things up. Everything related to Unchained X and Back Cover implies as much, even if (at best) they’re only trying to lay the groundwork for the games after that.
But if Back Cover is a glimpse of the franchise’s future, then it proves that Squeenix hasn’t learned a damn thing.
Bland characters? Stilted dialogue? Cutscene after cutscene of white noise? A plot that can only exist if characters act like idiots? A plot that can only exist if no one sits down and talks to each other, clearly and directly, for, like, five minutes? Characters that are supposed to be friends and allies, but turn on each other at the drop of a hat? A ham who we’re supposed to believe is pulling the strings of everything and everyone, but really just has to let the “good guys” self-destruct? Layering questions on top of questions? Setting up for sequels the franchise is blessed to receive? Yep. Sounds like Birth by Sleep 2.0, only without the gameplay to save us from hell.
Also there’s Unchained X or whatever. I don’t want to talk about that, so I won’t.
When I first watched Back Cover, I didn’t feel like I gained anything from it except for a minor headache and resentment over the fact that I’d wasted about 80 minutes of my life. Having rewatched it, I still don’t feel like I gained anything. Except anger. Lots of anger. Out of all the issues I have with it, my biggest is that I hate how this franchise -- and the minds behind it -- handle tragedy. Mostly because they don’t.
They want to create scenarios where good (and good-ish) people fall from grace, doomed to face a fate far too cruel for mortal men. But every time they try it, it’s a complete botch. The characters are consistently incomplete sketches who only exist to peddle mysteries while wearing death flags tied to heir red shirts. Huge swaths of their dialogue serve to annoy and confuse, not to endear. Their choices and actions aren’t just alien, but downright stupid. I know that tragedies are often the result of a character’s fatal flaw spelling their doom, but KH routinely shows how not to do it.
I can’t support anyone or anything in Back Cover because it failed to bridge the gap between real-world logic and in-universe logic. The five Foretellers are all wound up because there’s a traitor in their midst (maybe?) and the end of the world is coming (supposedly?), and they have to sort things out without the direction of their true leader, the Master of Masters. So when they’re discussing what to do, and the nature of their organization(s), and the situation at large, they often say something to the effect of “We have to obey the Master’s orders.” And I’m just sitting there going “But why, though?” Repeatedly.
There’s never an attempt made to question the Master’s orders. They all just willingly, blindly accept whatever black-clad Anime Deadpool said (on- or off-screen). There’s some lip service to them needing to question authority thanks to Ava’s solo musings, but that idea is never adequately explored in the movie. So even though the Master is clearly playing them and instigating the apocalypse that is the Keyblade War -- for reasons unexplained in the movie, because fuck you play more KH games -- the Foretellers all decide to be complete bumble kings and create the exact circumstances needed to instigate the apocalypse. Because the Master said so. And yeah, I get it: the rules of dramatic irony and all that. But it’s absolutely infuriating, especially since that irony is being carried out by a merry band of idiots that are impossible to identify with.
…
...Is…is the Star Wars prequel trilogy enshrined somewhere in Squeenix’s HQ? Is that their bible or something?
...Is…is the Star Wars prequel trilogy enshrined somewhere in Squeenix’s HQ? Is that their bible or something?
Okay, I’m done talking about Back Cover now. Here’s the real shit: it’s hard to prescribe solutions to KH’s lingering, ever-present problems, because paradoxically, the solutions are also problems embedded in the franchise’s DNA. Example: as a whole, KH has too many characters. The final conflict in KHIII will have almost (or over, depending on who/how you count) two dozen characters, but only a fraction of them have been properly developed. I know there’s hullabaloo around Xion, but she hasn’t been relevant since 2009.
So you would think the solution would be to feature fewer characters -- but no. That’s the wrong approach, because KH has too few characters. And I’m not talking about the Disney characters, because they’re walled off from the OC story; I mean that nearly effort to flesh out the worlds and expand the scope meaningfully fail because the franchise comes off as a Turf War in Splatoon. Aqua, Ventus, Terra, and Eraqus are all there to keep the traditions of the Keyblade warriors alive, but their organization is a joke because it looks like it’s just three people and the crazy coot bossing them around. Was there no room in the story to add a few more apprentices training in the Land of Departure, or the odd Keyblade Master traveling around along the way? And when it’s time to write them out of the story -- clearing the way for KH1 and a clean slate -- you could make edits so that Terranort wiped them out before he got beaten, or say Vanitas has been hunting them throughout the whole game. There. Bam. Done.
It’s like this with every problem the franchise has faced. The games are way too complex in their plot points and storytelling conceits, but the games are way too simple in the way that basic ideas are pushed forward. The games are too silly to be taken seriously, but the games are too serious to be seen as silly. The games bank heavily on nostalgia for Disney movies, but the games completely ignore the nostalgia for Disney movies…assuming that the effort isn’t botched via seeming incompetence. The games are too dumb to tackle their subtext and subject matter, but too smart to ignore their subtext and subject matter. It goes on, and on, and on, and on.
What really kills me (besides everything else) is that in spite of the countless, justifiable gripes anyone paying attention can throw at KH, there really is a good story in there somewhere. There are ideas worth keeping around, themes worth exploring, and just general miscellanea that make the franchise stand out. I love the Nobodies; I always have, and always will. The animations and sounds you get from them really sell them as horrific abominations that shouldn’t exist -- but I can still picture them appearing in a Disney movie, if you can believe that.
Also, for the record? For me, Nobodies > Heartless > power gap > Unversed > Dream Eaters.
In plenty of games (yes, even Birth by Sleep, which I still hate), the amount of potential vis a vis the thematic heft is staggering. In the hands of a better team, KH could have been utterly unrivaled in terms of video game storytelling -- a luxury afforded by mixing the Disney mystique with the intimacy of a good role-playing game. Technically that potential is still sort of there in the games’ current forms -- if you squint hard enough, you could make a case -- but the shoddy execution reminds me, again and again, what could have been.
KHII could have been about the validation of existence, the right to live, and the will to survive. Roxas was born to die for the sake of the narrative, and an accident in the narrative. Imagine if he had exited in more than just promo materials and the first three hours of the game -- if he clawed against the mechanisms telling him he should never have been born. Imagine if he struggled directly against Sora (within or without, take your pick), forcing the Keyblade wielder to acknowledge the pain others less fortunate have suffered, thus making him introspective about how blessed he is to travel the universe with a talking dog.
Days could have followed the same trajectory, more or less. Instead of blathering on endlessly about friendship and ice cream -- instead of setting up another “born to die” character in Xion -- focus on Roxas. Hell, drop the Organization entirely, or at least heavily edit them. Play up their inherent otherness from living beings; since they don’t (or didn’t…?) have hearts, have their thoughts, reasoning, and actions venture into the uncanny valley -- up to and including Nobody-appropriate add-ons to their bodies. (Maybe hide their grotesque parts under their cloaks.)
Then, leave Roxas to fend for himself, going from mindless zombie and blank slate to fully-fledged human as he roams Twilight Town. You could even make his friendship with Hayner, Pence, and Olette less hollow by having them show him what it means to be human -- and spur their character development by having them treat him as a pet or a school project, only to change their perspective as they realize they’re dealing with a human being. Or at least, a being that wants to be human.
BBS could have been a crushing deconstruction of the franchise’s core gimmicks -- an examination of what “friendship” means in this universe. The bonds between Aqua, Ventus, and Terra all come off as superficial at best in the core game, but imagine if the tweaks had been made to establish that as the entire point; then it would be a treatise on the fragility of bonds, proving whether true friendship can overcome all hardships, or if personal desires and ambitions take precedence. If that were the case, you wouldn’t even need Master Xehanort to wait until everyone bumbles themselves to death pull the strings as per his evil plan. Tell a story about how Aqua, Ventus, and Terra naturally self-destruct on their own, instigated by the pressures of becoming Keyblade Masters and their inevitable drift as they become adults with different paths in life. And Eraqus is powerless to stop it. Hell, at that stage he’d be the one nudging them further and further into self-destruction -- which would make him the villain instead, only less of the mustache-twirling variety.
And 3D? Redemption and innocence -- be it lost or regained. Put a greater emphasis on Riku’s journey to step out of the shadows he once thrived in, with his growth as a character more directly emphasized (and accelerated) by way of him visiting various Disney worlds. Take advantage of 3D’s parallel world mechanic; have Riku visit the happier, more pleasant version of each world, while Sora -- because he’s secretly in the Organization’s clutches -- visits the darker underbelly. Disney movies are no stranger to nightmare fuel, so make our hero experience that again and again. So instead of Sora going through a limp-wristed version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, give him the full Frollo experience and see if he comes out the other side smiling.
There’s so much that could have been done. So fucking much. But they didn’t. Instead of developing the core cast, they went “But Xehanort, tho!” Instead of enriching the story with themes and deeper meanings, they went “But friendship, tho!” This could have been the ultimate franchise, but it isn’t. It never can be. That ship has sailed, and nothing can bring it back. Even if KHIII turns out to be a masterpiece, it won’t be enough to erase almost 20 years of inanity spread across every gaming peripheral under the sun.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m still waiting for KHIII. I’m still gonna play the crap out of it. I’ve played worse RPGs by this company, so I don’t anticipate this being the breaking point of my sanity. But I’m worried, guys. I’m really worried. I’m worried about the game’s final state; certainly, I want it to be good, but the odds are well out of its favor and mine.
If the game is great, then it’ll be heartbreaking to know that it took this long to get a full, definitive game that makes good on the promise -- the promise of both KHI, and the franchise as a whole. If the game is awful, then the exact opposite will be true. It’ll be heartbreaking, watching a franchise I love (for some reason) fall apart at its very end…and I’d be a damn liar if I said it wasn’t unexpected.
I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if I’ll be sad or mad when all’s said and done. But I guess we’ll find out.
But before we get to that, there’s something else I need to take care of.
Fuck it, we’re doing 0.2 first -- because against all odds, that’s the one thing that gives me hope for the future.
Let’s fuckin’ go.
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