Is it a 'kids' series?
Ive completed KH and Im playing KH2. I enjoy the combat and meeting the Disney characters, but sometimes I feel like Im playing a kids game and that its all a bit 'light', 'naive' and 'unrealistic' for me.
I think its often to do with how the story is told. The way concepts are presented sometimes seems like child's play compared to some of the stuff I've read - such as the darkness in our hearts. Does anyone else get this feeling?
"They said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come around a common purpose. But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do." - Barack Obama.
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You answered the question yourself; Disney is involved. How dark and mature do you expect any game in which the main character always runs around with Donald Duck or Goofy at his side to be?
There's some deeper ideas and concepts in the games that do get simplified, but the storytelling does tend to gloss over some of the darker realities revolving around the themes. Kingdom Hearts 2 dives into it a little bit more toward the end, but don't get your hopes up too much.
That all said, I enjoyed both games very much. Then again, I went in taking an obvious note of the dominant presence of Disney characters and the very obvious E rating. I got what I expected, and so I wasn't disappointed.
I love "light" games. And if your finding a game "unrealistic" you need to either suspend disbelief or find another medium. You sound like my roommate who doesn't like Finding Nemo because he doesn't believe fishes lives are that complicated.
Yea it is aimed at a younger audience, but who cares really. It's a fun game. And it's a Disney game, you can't expect Tolken or Adams style writing.
I felt it too. * Curses Disney for adding Auron to a Mickey and Goofy game *
Me and my kids have dragon eggs:
If KH is just for kids I don't want to be an adult.
Nahh... It is a fun game, I just wanted it to be "not for kids" so only cool people would play it
Me and my kids have dragon eggs:
We've had a topic on this, and it got closed, and since this is the same thing this should be closed too!
Fixed.Originally Posted by Balthier Rocks
Something's off about that statement.Fixed.
Anyway, I've yet to encounter a kid of the Disney target age group who could actually beat the original Kingdom Hearts game (despite how easy KH2 is). In fact, I can think of very few people under 12 or 13 who play it at all. While others might consider that age still to be little kids, I try to give a majority of them a little more credit. Even then, the larger part of the actively involved Kingdom Hearts community is still quite a bit older than that.
While the content may be a little childish, the games haven't really been marketed towards kids--something I'm sure was heavily influence by the appearance of Final Fantasy characters, which initially drew SE's typical fan following despite the appearances being only slightly more than cameos.
The unrealistic nature of it is not what Im complaining of. I mean, I love Final Fantasy games with characters like Vivi - hardly realistic.
I think what Im trying to say is that Kingdom Hearts feels a bit contrived. In normal Disney, the messages seemed to fit in a cohesive way with the story. Maybe I should hold my tongue till I finish, but I just feel alienated when Namine goes on about 'chaining memories in people's hearts.' It really makes no 'real' sense. It sometimes feel like they make stuff up as they go along.
Also, in the best Disney films, the content and ideas were actually quite deep so that even adults could enjoy it. I dont feel the same about KH. But Im probably being a bit harsh - and Im finding it hard to articulate what I mean. Its still a fun and amusing game. Even if I do hide the cover when my friends come round.
"They said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come around a common purpose. But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do." - Barack Obama.
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Go read a script of Chain of Memories. While not strictly necessary to enjoy Kingdom Hearts II, it certainly fills in a lot of the empty spaces. It fills a lot of gaps that I imagine a player would ponder if he skipped directly to Kingdom Hearts II without at least reading an overview.
KH: CoM introduced us to a number of characters and elements present in Kingdom Hearts II. For example, Sora met Namine in Chain of Memories. She undid the links that bound his memories together, filling them with false links and false memories at the behest of Marluxia (a member of Organization XIII planning to use Sora to usurp "the Superior"). To repair this damage, she puts Sora in a deep slumber and reconstructs his memories by breaking down the links of the chain of Sora's memories and putting them back as they were--effectively causing him to forget everything that happened during CoM. Not only does CoM introduce Namine, but also DiZ and the members of Organization XIII who do not appear in KH2 (Axel is the only member who survived CoM to make a reappearance in KH2).
That's an extremely condensed version, however, omitting details. Although the gameplay of CoM was not exactly to my tastes, I found its plot very interesting, and I can't imagine playing KH2 without first having played CoM. Really, after getting some info about what happened then, you won't feel like SE is pulling stuff out of their asses as you play through KH2 (especially because none of the characters ever really give Sora a proper explanation of what happened during the year he can't remember--at least not that we can see, although we can assume he finds everything out after the game ends).
^Ok, so thats probably a big reason why. I had no idea about any of this stuff, and I think its silly that they dont explain it better in game. I mean, I played KH1 - that should be enough.
So maybe the story is more comlex - I think the key messages are just not to my taste. Maybe because Im scientific and I dont like the extended metaphor of the heart. I mean, a heart is a muscle for God's sake.
"They said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come around a common purpose. But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do." - Barack Obama.
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That's what I was saying earlier about suspending disbelief. When playing a game like this you can't think with your brain, you have to think with you brain-heart. The heart may be just a muscle in your eyes, but the heart is a symbol worldwide for feeling and stuff. And you probably know that hearts don't look like <3 and I pray that you don't go in Hallmark stores and point that out to people.
Given the nature of the ending to Chain of Memories, explaining the events wouldn't really work well into Kingdom Hearts II's plot. You can assume that Sora is just as confused by all the references to CoM as you are as a player. He doesn't remember anything by the time he wakes up in KH2, so you can play through the game more closely through Sora's eyes.
While it is a huge disappointment that the events of CoM don't get explained, it would be very difficult to try and do that. There's only four people who made it out of CoM with all their memories intact. Three of them never get the opportunity to sit down and tell Sora what's up, and by the time Sora encounters the forth, there's other stuff going down that's far more urgent.
I really suggest reading an overview. Chain of Memories gives the player the first proper introduction to Nobodies (who probably seemed to appear out of nowhere to you). The Nobodies were mentioned in the secret trailers for KH and KH:FM (titled Another Side, Another Story and Deep Dive respectively), but we received little insight into what they are other than an ambiguous description calling them the "nonexistent ones." While CoM doesn't explain the creation of a Nobody, it gives enough information that allows the player to piece it together.
If you were wondering about Riku, keep in mind that after beating Sora's part of Chain of Memories, a shorter story involving Riku's journey through Castle Oblivion called Reverse Rebirth is playable. It doesn't say much about where Riku will end up, but at least you won't feel like he's completely and totally dropped out of the game.
But yeah, most of the things that seem to pop out of nowhere in Kingdom Hearts 2 are results of events occurring in CoM. For example, I'm sure you've noticed that Organization XIII is short a fair few members.
^Thanks for the information and advice.
Ive checked it out briefly but Ill see it in more detail soon. I still dont think the story's up my allyway, but Ill concede that it has more depth than I gave it credit for.
"They said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come around a common purpose. But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do." - Barack Obama.
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