From the Desk of the President: Kingdom Hearts without Disney?

Hello everyone! This is totally my first blog here! Anyways, I decided I would start a semi-regular blog series where I sit down and muse about certain things in the video game world. Most of the time these will be in some kind of question form, and I really would like to hear what people have to say in response. 
 
With that out of the way, lets get started!
 

Kingdom Hearts - Disney = Better game?

Hello everyone! This is totally my first blog here! Anyways, I decided I would start a semi-regular blog series where I sit down and muse about certain things in the video game world. Most of the time these will be in some kind of question form, and I really would like to hear what people have to say in response. 
 
With that out of the way, lets get started!
 

Kingdom Hearts - Disney = Better game?

The people who want to remove Disney from these games are the same ones who have the username xSephirothx and like over abundant yaoi fanfic. I'd ignore them as they're the minority.

I've never played a Kingdom Hearts game, am I missing out on anything epic?

I doubt that Square Enix could remove Disney from Kingdom Hearts at this point, given how the rights of the non-Final Fantasy characters (i.e.: Sora, Riku, etc.) belong to Disney, from what I understand.

The only reason why I enjoy Kingdom Hearts at any level is because of the Disney characters. I absolutely hate all the JRPG characters and Final Fantasy stuff. 

Yeah, Disney was the only reason I played the first Kingdom Hearts. I hate Final Fantasy games and all of the stupid characters that go along with it. But I love Disney characters. So I played the first one and liked it quite a bit. I never did play the second one, or anything that came later. But if they would just release a new one on consoles already, WITH Disney characters, I would be on board.

Isn't that what Final Fantasy Versus or whatever is going to be?

I've never played a Kingdom Hearts game, am I missing out on anything epic?

Isn't that what Final Fantasy Versus or whatever is going to be?

I've never played a Kingdom Hearts game, am I missing out on anything epic?

If Versus XIII is a hit with the KH fanbase, I can see the KH team dropping or lowering Disney.

If Disney leaves that franchise, so will I.

Thanks for the replies guys! I'm glad to see there are a lot of people who really enjoy the Disney parts of the KH games.
 
@Hailinel said:

I doubt that Square Enix could remove Disney from Kingdom Hearts at this point, given how the rights of the non-Final Fantasy characters (i.e.: Sora, Riku, etc.) belong to Disney, from what I understand.

Disney is such an enjoyable nostalgic rush in Kingdom Hearts, I'd be saddened if they ever removed that part. And if they did - then it's just like a toned down FF and we already have one of those in XIII...

If Disney leaves that franchise, so will I.

Why does it sound like you haven't played a lot of Final Fantasy games? I have other complaints, but I'll leave it at that.

Why does it sound like you haven't played a lot of Final Fantasy games? I have other complaints, but I'll leave it at that.

I'll admit that I have never played much of an FF game from any era, but I did have some friends who were really into the series and I did see it played a lot.

@Axxol: Try out the first game. The second game kinda gets crazier with their fiction but it's still enjoyable.

• Organization XIII isn't really full of angsty teens. A lot of them aren't even teenagers, and they don't have angst (angst is an emotion, right?).
• That long-ass Roxas intro was kind of necessary, since he's pretty important to the plot. How else would 358/2 Days happen, or Riku become evil Riku? Your carelessness has eliminated at least two subplots!
• Mopey Cloud? That one just confuses me.

There are already Final Fantasy mash-ups out there including the most recent Dissidia entries.  The whole point of Kingdom Hearts (as in "Magic Kingdom") is the crossover with Disney.  It's the combination of Eastern and Western icons that makes the franchise so entertaining.  Sure, not every game is going to be as magical as the first, but that doesn't have anything to do with the inclusion of Disney characters.  I admit, for future installments they might want to dig a little deeper than Jack Sparrow and Tron.  It would be really nice to include the Pixar characters as well as Bolt and Rapunzel from Tangled in a future game.   Maybe some Pixar stuff did make it into some games, I don't know much past Chain of Memories.  
 
If Kingdom Hearts removed Disney it wouldn't be Kingdom Hearts anymore, but I wouldn't mind some other mash up.  The problem is I don't think anything else has the global acceptance than Disney does.  Maybe in another two or three decades, Dream Works will have enough out to build a game around.  I know, from a Western perspective, Warner Bros Looney Tunes is the obvious replacement, but I believe that would change the dynamic of the series.  Bugs and crew are more about slapstick comedy than adventure, friendship and conquering our fears which are themes in Disney movies and Final Fantasy games.  Square Enix could go with Western comic book characters but Capcom already took Marvel and I'm not sure there is a demand to see Batman hanging out with Tidus.  In my mind, one of the principle facets of KH is these Japanese characters interacting with characters who are largely different than themselves.  If that's removed, it loses a lot of what makes it unique.  

I would not really want to play a Kingdom Hearts game without the disney part. 
Maybe it's because I don't really like Final Fantasy, and the disney characters and worlds balance that out a bit.

good god fanboi comes out to play.  First don't talk about FF at all, you admit you have played none of the games, the end your done.  If you don't know what you are talking about don't talk about it.   Second Kingdom Hearts was never that good, I played the first one, wondered why everyone seemed to think it was so good (I would rank it average) and the second one stank bar none.  Tron was the only good thing about it.  The rest of them are exactly what the first two were, JRPG's with disney characters in them.  You hate FF tough cause here comes a scary reality, replace the disney characters with random FF ones you never see and make a slight setting change and the game is perfectly in tact.  You don't need to adjust the story in the tiniest little bit.  It was always a FF game with disney characters tacked on to con people who don't like FF into buying it.  Guess what? It worked.

I bought the original KH solely for the Disney elements (well, that and the gameplay appealed to me) as I hadn't played any other Square games at the time, and I wouldn't wanna see them removed from the franchise. But honestly, if they had just adopted the FF model and created a bunch of standalone games, or turned it into a run-of-the-mill platformer without much of a story like originally intended, I doubt I would've enjoyed the series nearly as much and wouldn't have stuck with it for close to 9 years now. So while I wouldn't want them to remove Disney entirely (and I don't think I've ever met anyone that did -- just people who were "OK" with it), I don't mind that Disney hasn't always been as prominently featured in the sequels as it was in the original.

If you care that much about the Disney aspect, why don't you just play Epic Mickey instead? Either that or you could wait for a potential reboot after they finish up the Xehanort saga in KH3. Disney owns everything KH with the exception of FF and Tarzan, so they have full right to take the franchise away from Square Enix and have some other company run it into the ground.

@President_Barackbar: 
 
Where to start?
 

• Organization XIII isn't really full of angsty teens. A lot of them aren't even teenagers, and they don't have angst (angst is an emotion, right?).
• That long-ass Roxas intro was kind of necessary, since he's pretty important to the plot. How else would 358/2 Days happen, or Riku become evil Riku? Your carelessness has eliminated at least two subplots!
• Mopey Cloud? That one just confuses me.

Yea, that oughta do it.

• The only ones I remember asking for pity were Demyx and maybe Axel. Other than that, they were stoic badasses led by somebody with a spray-on tan.
• OK, I guess. Still, not having Roxas would still have a plot hole (Naminé exists, but not a Sora Nobody?).
• Eh, I guess you're right on that. Then again, he doesn't appear a lot in the game. You see him hanging out by a building, then he fights off Heartless, then Goofy dies, then he doesn't, and that's it.
  

If you want more characterization for the Organization, I'd recommend playing 358/2 Days, which is entirely Organization-centric.  It helps flesh out the personalities and motivations of its members.

If you want more characterization for the Organization, I'd recommend playing 358/2 Days, which is entirely Organization-centric.  It helps flesh out the personalities and motivations of its members.

I wouldn't want the Disney characters to go either, but I'm pretty sure the reason someone wants them gone is because they want to venture to the Final Fantasy worlds and not so much the Disney. Back in high school when the games came out, two of my friends that liked the game (and loved FF) said they almost didn't play it because they thought with the Disney characters in there, it was going to be too kiddy, but they ended up liking it anyways. And my best friend (and his little sister) that's never played either game both said the same comment you have up there about the shoes. I think some people just don't like the mix. I don't think my brother likes the Disney stuff as much as the FF aspect either. I for one, like both (though I've only gotten 30 minutes to 20 hours in on any FF game). 

I've never played a Kingdom Hearts game, am I missing out on anything epic?

@Axxol said:

I've never played a Kingdom Hearts game, am I missing out on anything epic?

no. It's a bizarre game who's popularity is indicative of a certain type of gamer who exited in a certain time in gaming. I don't forsee it's appeal making any sense to gamers older or younger than those in the strikezone of the game when it was released.

I really like KH, but I don't really think anything they do after the disappointing KH2 could make me want to play a Kingdom Hearts game again. After all, KH2, in all its crazyness, wasn't even really open-ended; it was a self contained story made "open-ended" by 

@Afroman269 said:

If Disney leaves that franchise, so will I.

The Disney Characters and worlds are what makes those games great to me, taking Disney out of it and it would be a shitfest worse than... 
Well, whatever the hell terrible game Square has made since

I think Disney is what makes Kingdom Hearts. 

There's already been a Kingdom Hearts without Disney. Or Final Fantasy. And it wasn't even made by Square (but they did publish it and do own it)
 
It was called Nier.

I've never played a Kingdom Hearts game, am I missing out on anything epic?

I've never played a Kingdom Hearts game, am I missing out on anything epic?

If you take Disney out of Kingdom Hearts, it becomes a really dumb Final Fantasy game.  It's largely the Disney charm and characters that keep me going.  Sora/Riku/Kairi are all completely vacant as characters.  And all the FF guys do (Square, Squall, Yuffie, Sephiroth) do is stand around, waiting to do something.  It's going into the world and hanging with Aladdin, or visiting Halloween Town, which is the cool parts of Kingdom Hearts.  If anything, there's not enough Disney in those games (actual good Disney worlds, not the stupid Little Mermaid crap).

If Disney leaves that franchise, so will I.

Kingdom Hearts had an interesting combat system, but that's the only real take away I had from it. There were many times in my 24-hour stint with Final Fantasy 13 where I wished that game used Kingdom Hearts combat system. The battles looked like an action RPG, why not make it play like one. 

A lot of people who love KH love it, because it incorporates two things that made them feel nostalgic: Final Fantasy and Disney.  I loved the parts in either 1 or 2 where Cloud and Sephiroth fought as well as playing through the Beauty and the Beast's Hollow Bastion.  For the people who'd never played Final Fantasy games, I can see why many of them didn't like KH as much as somebody like me.   
 
I remember the first time I saw a trailer for KH was at E3 2002.  I remember I'd read some details about the game in a magazine, and thought it sounded kinda silly, but after I walked past the booth showing the trailer and playing the awesome music, I knew it was going to be more than I'd anticipated.   After I finished the game, I knew that it was one of my favorites of all time.  
 
When 2 came out, I went and bought it.  I enjoyed it as well.  I still watch the opening movies for both games on youtube fairly often.

I really enjoyed the first Kingdom Hearts. I could see a Kingdom Hearts without Disney, but in my mind it would need to be a crossover with a different company, probably multiple companies. However, just try to convince multiple companies that they should all team up for a super-game. Not going to happen. 
Besides, even if that were possible, Disney is admittedly very hard to beat.

You wrote this like three months ago, but I didn't notice it then, so whatever. I certainly agree that the Disney parts are what make KH special. I also agree that the first KH was a better game. That said, I don't have any kind of problem with the Final Fantasy stuff, and prefer the first KH more because of the way the two games play than the story bits (not that I'd want KH3 to get any more crazy than KH 2 was). 
 
Also, you should play Chain of Memories. That game is great.