Tetsuya Nomura spoke with Famitsu on the next in his series of Kingdom Hearts games, Dream Drop Distance. In the interview, translated by SQEX GAL, he said that he is currently going over the scenario with Disney for approval, and it seems that the story is a bit hard to understand.
"It’s fairly complicated. Right now I’m telling Disney about the scenarios, but it’s hard for them to understand it all at once."
It seems that they're hanging in there, though: "It’s difficult since their approval is necessary to move forward with localization, but there are many people in Disney who love the Kingdom Hearts series as well. They want to create the game accurately too, so somehow they’re following along with me."
If you want to blame someone for Nomura's crazy, convoluted story lines, blame Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. Earlier in the interview he told Famitsu that he was hoping to make the story more clear and simple.
"But while I was developing the first Kingdom Hearts, I received a single piece of advice from Sakaguchi-san*. That was, 'If you don’t make it more complex like with Final Fantasy, you won’t be able to compete.'"
Damn you, Sakaguchi!
Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance To Have Controllable Event Scenes [Siliconera]
Contest:
11:00 AM on 08.03.2011 | 
That prick :L
Yeaaaah, but 3D: Derp Durp Derpity is probably gonna be good.
Really, how could you not used that? xD
You and me both sister.
I wish Nomura would stopped spreading the series so thin. The first two and Chain of Memories no problem. 358/2 Days, not bad. We learn about Roxas. Birth By Sleep? Awesome. Good game and we learn about the origins of the story. But Coded? Did Nomura honestly plagiarize some fan-fiction writer? And now another story that even Disney doesn't understand?
After Birth By Sleep they should've just started immediately on developing Kingdom Hearts III already. Also, after this long friggin' wait, we better see some damn Pixar characters! *shakes fist*
Also the only one in the series I have played was the first and I absolutely loved it, are any of the others good?
Chain of Memories, 358, Re:Coded, all of those are pretty unnecessary. I mean just go read some wiki entries for fucks sake.
People bitch about the complexity of the Kingdom Hearts series like it's some god damn da vinci code puzzle...
I"ve said this before but Birth by Sleep is basically KH3. Its extremely important plot wise and plays better then 1 or 2. The trailer(aka secret ending in KH2) for it that was put on youtube was even titled "KH3" for many years.
People forget but KH2 didn't exactly set up a massive sequel.
I would love for the Disney license to be pulled and Square Enix to re-focus its efforts on its older and more deserving IPs.
It's not hilarious, so much as a fucking tragedy.
The story is not that complex, once you get your head around the item of dreams, memoirs and souls and how these can be moved around I found it very simple.
Play 1,2, and Birth by Sleep as those are the necessary ones . I don't see how expanding the plot in a series is bad. And all the people crying for 3 probably haven't played Birth by Sleep. It actually sets up a 3rd game(which KH2 didn't)
Also
Like with the Final Fantasy series, Square has taken an exciting concept with the KH series and driven it into the ground. JAPAN!
Kingdom Hearts - Chain of Memories; Oh ok, that's a bit weird, combat based on cards... but it's really nice for a GBA game
Kingdom Hearts 2; Wow, Square-Enix, way to go! CAN'T WAIT FOR 3!
Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories; Oh nice now I can have the whole series on Playstation, yay!
Kingdom Hearts: Coded; Oooook I guess you have to please these ravenous japanese cellphone-only players?
Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days; Ok, what the hell is going on here? And what kind of strange title is that? Why ANOTHER game set between KH 1 and 2? Wasn't Chain of Memories and even a remake of that same game not enough to cover that period?
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep; Oh ok so THAT's what the teaser at the end of KH2 was about. That's ok i guess because it was a cool trailer. But I wish it was KH3, I want to know what's NEXT you know... And that title isn't much better than this 358 and a half-something atrocity of a name.
Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance; SERIOUSLY S-E, IT'S BEEN SIX YEARS NOW, I KIND OF WANT A PROPER SEQUEL WITH AN EASY TO UNDERSTAND TITLE INSTEAD OF OVER-CONVULTED BULLSHIT. KKTHXBAI.
I guess people value a console installment of an anemic Disney-flavored Star Wars clone more than actual action RPGs, but its still funny to watch people curse SE for making actual games when it seems Nomura and Tabita are the only ones left at SE with that intent.
I say stick to the handheld ones, fuck the vocal minority that hates them and make KH3 a CG movie rather than a waste of time on the PS3, because if that game is anything like the PS2 ones, I'm just Youtubing the cutscenes. It should be, at minimum, like Birth By Sleep.
Or just put KH3 on PSV instead of PS3, just so some of these "fans" can have a fucking stroke.
At any rate, I liked KH because it had amazing gameplay with the Disney characters I grew up with. It was a nostalgia trip for me. I say they take out all of the Squeenix characters and just let you play as Mickey, Donald, or Goofy stomping ass around the Disney Universe...
He's 10 years old.
Too bad, cause the gameplay in KH2 was fantastic, I just wish we could get more of that but with either a decent story or no story at all.
Welcome to the hell of an ex-final fantasy fanboy. Just remember; they use to make good games before they started making shit ones.
Here Ill simplfy it
KH1: The worlds are being destroyed by creatures called heartless. Sora Riku and Kairi live on a island and dream of exploring the world. The night before they set off and thier island is attacked; Kairi gets kidnapped, Riku turns to the darkside, and Sora is chosen as the keyblade master to save the world.
He travels across worlds with donald and goofy, finally meeting up with the now evil Riku and Kairi who has had her heart taken out and is just a shell. IMPORTANT PLOT POINT In order to change her back to normal Sora essentially kills himself and he turns into a heartless; he then gets better. Riku gets possessed by the evil Xehanort and Sora beats the bad guy. Riku and king mickey get locked in the world of darkness when sora seals the world off to prevent heartless coming through. At the end he leaves Kairi to go looking for Riku
KH COM: Sora looking for Riku goes into a castle. In the castle there are evil people called Organisation 13. They use a witch called namine to mess with soras memories, by the end all of the organisation have been killed apart from one called Axel. In the end Sora Donald and Goofy have to go into a coma like state so Namine can undo what shes done and fix thier memories
KH2: Skip forward a year; a boy called Roxas finds out he is a keyblade master. Moreso he was "born" when sora turned into a heartless; basically a shell of Sora. We find out that Organisation 13 is composed entirley of people born from others being turned into heartless; and are looking for a way to become complete. Roxas fuses into Sora so Sora can have his memories. Sora donald and Goofy wake up and continue looking for Riku. In the final showdown they face Xehanort (the boss from the first game)shell that was left when he turned into a heartless. They fight with Riku and win; then go back to the island.
Thats basically the 'Act 1' story of the franchise. The story ends there, and we are in a "Act 2" right now with the games Birth by sleep and 3D. This second act is meant to end with KH3. That means that igoring side games there are only 3 games in Act 1 and 2, not really that hard to wrap your head around.
For people complaining that there isnt a KH3... technically Birth by sleep was it, and 3D is technically 4. They have the same production time and quality into making them and the creater says they are as important as numbered titles. So yeah, theyre not side games, dunno why the number 3 is so important for people to have.
Yeah, and even they have to see that the endless, convoluted, games that aren't actual sequels are too much.
Convoluted does not equal interesting
I'm absolutely with you guys on this one. If you think it sounds stupid or don't want to play the side stories, don't play them. They are, quite literally, "side stories". They don't ultimately matter that much to the plot. Furthermore, the plot is actually pretty simple to follow once you wrap your head around a few of the key ideas in the KH Universe. That being said, I'm also pretty tired of waiting for another big console installment.