Kingdom Heartache?

This is on the front page of the site. I'm not up to date on the GB podcasts so maybe they already said this but what do you think their plans are for this? You think this is a West or East feature? Who do you think is running this? You think it's going to be poo-pooing on the series for the whole thing? (As someone who's played all the games, I'm cool with whatever they want to do, I'm just curious.)

At the end of Bradley May Cry, Vinny said something about the Kingdom Hearts HD collection releasing and that they should play it, to which Brad replied "Fuck no!"

I'm going to assume Vinny is the only person on staff who would ever even entertain the idea of a Kingdom Hearts feature. Maybe it'll be him in his basement MST3K-style with his Transformers.

This seems like an east feature, and oh my god have they been killing it lately with games I want to see them play.

Very excited to see what exactly this is about...

They should just play 2. It's the best one and it's not like the story makes a lick of sense one way or the other.

Wow, this is a series I never expected them to touch with a 10-foot pole.

I don't know what to expect from this, but I get the impression there isn't much Disney love around GB, so I hope it's not just going to be a bunch of groaning "because Disney". I'm not interested in watching that.

I'll be tuning in to find out though.

i have no idea, but please let this be an abby centric feature. i don't care about kingdom hearts, nor have i ever played a kingdom hearts game past the first one, but abby is the best!

although if i had to guess, this involves dan in some way, the man who hates disney the most on the gb staff.

@zeik: I believe Ryan liked Disney. But he was on the Dream Drop Distance quick look and didn't seem care for the series. Vinny has seemed to not hate the series. And about a week ago on the Bombcast in talking about the Toy Story announcement, expressed interest. So I'd imagine he's leading it but I don't know who would be with him.

@tepidshark: Alex I'd bet. I wouldn't even be surprised if it was his idea. I know he's expressed his bafflement over the series before (but not in a totally dismissive way like the rest of GB), so this might be an excuse to explore wtf is up with series. It sure as hell isn't a Dan idea. I'm pretty confident about that.

Abby would be great too, although I have no idea what her stance on Disney or this series is.

I bet Vinny wants to play through all the KH games before 3 comes out.

Holy butts, I've been playing 1.5+2.5 in anticipation of KH3, this will be wonderful to play along with!

For whatever reason I picture Ben playing this, maybe it's because everyone on staff makes fun of KH and I dont know his opinion on it. As someone who never played any of these games but has watched various trailers over the years the thing that seems the most cringe inducing to me is how melodramatic and convoluted the story seems. I'm fine with Final Fantasy, i'm okay with Disney, but meshing them together seems like a bizzare and ill advised idea. But people seem to like it so what the fuck do I know.

EDIT: I realize melodrama and crazy plots are part and parcel with JRPGs (this is a JRPG isnt it?) but that contrasted with Disney, which usually tells straight forward and light hearted tales (yes I know they're Stars Wars and Marvel now) just seems dumb, again this is all from the trailers, it could be great...

It might be a real heartache because I just bought the HD version on PS4 and man does that first one not hold up. There's still something cool about having so many different licenses come together but that combat and camera is rough. And the story in that first game just moves without much context so it feels kind of hobbled together.

Just started the second one but, at least from memory, I remember enjoying the story and combat way more.

Regardless, I'd be down to watch them fumble around on KH for a few episodes.

Here's the full screencap from the thumbnail, Ben and Brad series.

Bout to say...seems like a West thing to me. East has too many features as it is.

@TechnoSyndrome: Well this is definitely gonna be a "Let's shit on Kingdom Hearts for 20 hours" series then.

@boozak: Have you seen any Disney movies lately? They have plenty of melodrama. Kingdom Hearts does amp it up a few dozen notches at times, especially as the series goes on, but "straightforward and lighthearted" isn't really how I would describe modern Disney, or even much of classic Disney.

The two properties actually mesh better than you might think, which is why it's popular in the first place. The main sticking point for a lot of people I think is more the convoluted MGS-esque plot as the series went on. (KH1 was still pretty straightforward.) Which I still mostly enjoy, because despite it being way more complicated than it probably should be it does (more or less) make sense if you follow it from the beginning, but I can't blame anyone for being turned off by it by this point. Reading a synopsis of that story up through the most recent game would likely drive a new player mad.

I would say at least wait for the episode to go up before you pass judgement, there's plenty of room to poke fun at Kingdom Hearts while still enjoying it.

@TechnoSyndrome: True, but expecting either Brad or Ben to enjoy much if anything from Kingdom Hearts is asking for a lot, I feel. Unless it's in a ironic or "this is so cheesy/convoluted/stupid that it's great" way.

That said, maybe the great soundtrack and Disney charm of it can win them over some. We will see.

I consider myself a Kingdom Hearts loremaster so this is gonna be....interesting

I believe Ben mentioned something about playing or wanting to play these games on a bombcast

Ryan put some effort into trying the Kingdom Hearts franchise because he loved Disney so much. Happy to see it back on the site in some way. Hopefully it isn't completely negative on it, but I think the crew is generally pretty good at getting to a nice middle-ground in teasing/frustration/enjoyment for any series regardless of their interest at first. Also, I think Ben and Brad make a great pairing on video (they balance each other out very well) so I'll probably enjoy this. Ben enjoys quite a few JRPG's and Brad enjoys a lot of 3rd-person action games, so I think they might enjoy it more than even they expect.

Ben and Brad huh? I was unreasonably excited when I saw the thumbnail but now i'm sad.. :(

I thought "what if they did a Kingdom Hearts series" for a while and now its finally happening. What other unlikely tragedies do you guys want me to wish for. Im open to ideas.

( I like kingdom hearts a lot please dont slaughter my child)

The idea of Ben torturing Brad for many hours could be fun. 1 isn't that hard to follow.

My only half joking one sentence of the entire Kingdom Hearts plot is: Everybody is connected to everybody & Leonard Nimoy's character is behind everything evil.

I really hope the series isn't just them dumping on the game and being miserable the entire time. There's plenty of stupid bullshit in Kingdom Hearts that's worthy of mockery (also: half the reason I like those games,) but I dunno if I want to watch a full playthrough if the participants actively resent what they're doing.

Imagine if they actually make it to the second game though.

$50 says this series goes unfinished if Brad is the one playing.

Yeah, I was gonna say it seems like an East series, but I guess not. Good to see the West office trying more of a long-play series. I seriously hope that Ben is a fan, or else this could be rough.

I remember Jeff saying a week or two ago that he does still appreciate Disney, plus Jason has his whole 3rd-person action/weird Japanese stuff aesthetic going on, so hopefully they can get more butts in the studio if this takes off.

Alternately: Ben tries to explain the lore of Kingdom Hearts to Jeff.

I'd guess Ben is the one playing since he asked about it on a recent bombcast. I'm interested to see where this goes. I enjoyed KH1&2 during their releases but I find it hard to believe they have aged well.

Who knows, I'd enjoy being wrong and I hope the guys love it. More than anything I'm glad West is trying something new.

I am fully in favour of a Ben+Brad playthrough. Love to see this type of content coming out of the west coast office again. Kingdom Hearts is an uh, iffy game so I never ended up doing the last world or two, it'll be interesting to finally close the book on it all these years later.

I feel like Jeff and Brad should go through all the KH games to get ready for three, ha ha. Eh, I like Kingdom Hearts fine. The only time it gets kind of dumb is with the hokiness of talk of friendship and light vs. dark. I like seeing the different Disney worlds and though some of the dialogue can be bad, the voice work is often really good. The combat is okay but not great. The gummy ship is mediocre. After two, I lost interest in KH all the way up to 2015 when I could finally play all the games on console, so it wasn't actually until late last year or so where I was fully back on with KH and ready for three. Before that, I played maybe an hour of Birth By Sleep, and a couple of hours of both the GBA and PS2 version of Chain of Memories, but didn't go through either. I tried two again, playing the first couple of hours in 2007 and disliked it at the time. I don't really get the sheer dislike for the games or the bewilderment of how it can be liked. Three's latest footage actually got me excited, and I'm not that big a fan of Toy Story, but that was cool.

Yeah Ben definitely talked about this series on a podcast recently so that makes sense. I think there's a good chance he'll actually like the mechanics of the game (which IMHO are what make it fun). Maybe play on Proud.

Do the collections have anything in the way of explaining the overall story better? It pretty much stopped making any sense as soon as I got to the 2nd game (I only played 1, 2, and 358/2)

Well the collections do include the spin-off games that Square apparently expects 100% of the audience to have played. 358/2 and Coded were redone as "movies" (entirely rendered using the existing PS2-level assets all of the games until 3 have used) though rather than fully remastering the DS games.

@quantris: The collections have all the final mix versions, which already added some new expanded story stuff that we never got, but there's no new content beyond that. But this is one of those series where you basically have to play everything (as well as read all the in-game hidden reports that explain the lore) to understand wtf is going on. Despite so many of the games not being numbered and treated like spin-offs, every game is basically a sequel. If you went from KH1 straight to KH2 you basically just skipped the middle chapter of that story.

It will be even worse for anyone who thinks they can go straight from KH2 to KH3. No amount of recap could ever sufficiently explain all the ridiculous new plot developments added in Birth by Sleep and Dream Drop Distance and beyond, which are going to be 100% relevant to KH3's story.

They should do a bully playthrough at some point.

Ben+Brad are already proving a strong duo. I've only seen my roomie play the HD version and it didn't look too great. Love gb west but they do need more features.

Bring it on!

@ripelivejam: I'd say they need more frequent episodes on features that already exist, rather than new ones. That said, I'll definitely try and watch this playthrough.

Also (assumedly) lengthy GB videos appearing on sundays are always a good thing.

I love Disney so this is exciting

Word

I like the Ben+Brad duo so far so I'm excited for this. Jeff would have been the perfect person to riff on KH, though. His sense of humor with this type of game would have been absolutely magical. I hope the guys legitimately try to enjoy the game because it can be a fun ride.

As a Kingdom Hearts fan, I am so hyped for this long play.

Kingdom Hearts is such a ridiculous overly serious series, that's ripe for lampooning. I worry about people complaining nonstop, though. Kingdom Hearts fan base is incredibly loyal, and are sensitive to mockery.

This is going to be great, except if Dan's the one playing. After Yakuza I can't even imagine the kind of conplaints he'd throw at this game.

This has the potential to be great if they don't just shit on it. Kingdom Hearts is one of the greatest game series ever made but I could see the West guys going into it with a pre-disposition that will grt in the way of entertainment, unfortunately.

I know nothing about Kingdom Hearts and I hate Disney, but I've also always been curious about what this series is.

Ben is growing on me and (apart from DOTA videos), I'll watch anything with Brad in it, so I'll give it a go.

I am beyond excited about this. Hopefully they go through them all. I just hope they realize that 2 comes before 358/2 Days even though they're flipped in the collection. Also don't forget 2.8! Man, imagine if this is the next Metal Gear Scanlon where they finish right before the new one comes out and then play that...

It's cool that it's not behind the pay wall.

This is going to be a nightmare and I love it.

This sounds great. Ben and Brad are a great duo. I'm not a huge fan of Kingdom Hearts but I also get weary of hearing constant trashing on any game so I hope they both go into this with a more open mind. Can't wait to see it.