Highlights
- The Kingdom Hearts franchise has released over nine games in the past twenty years, making the plot difficult to follow due to its continuous story and numerous spinoff titles.
- Kingdom Hearts 3 exemplified the franchise's continuity baggage issue, with players needing knowledge of the handheld games to understand the first ten minutes of the game.
- Kingdom Hearts 4 should ditch the franchise's worst habit by making the story more accessible to new fans, allowing them to jump into the franchise without extensive knowledge of past games.
It might be hard for some fans to imagine but the first Kingdom Hearts game was released over twenty years ago. While there have only been three main installments in the series, the franchise has released over nine games in that time across multiple platforms and re-released many of them several times. Unfortunately, because the series has one continuous story, the plot of the Kingdom Hearts franchise can be a little difficult to follow.
The core concept of the franchise isn't too difficult to sum up. The main characters go to various Disney worlds in the Kingdom Hearts universe, and reenact the plots of various films while battling an organization that commands creatures known as the Heartless. Those organizations are, generally speaking, trying to open the door to a realm known as Kingdom Hearts in order to obtain the power within to further their own ambitions. The problem is that the franchise goes about this in a way that is very difficult to follow and requires players to have a working knowledge of the plots and characters from its numerous spinoff titles. This is something that the series' next saga needs to avoid.
How Kingdom Hearts 3 Highlights The Series’ Worst Habit
Kingdom Hearts 3 was well reviewed by critics but the first few minutes of the game perfectly exemplifies the franchise's problem of continuity baggage. The game is not a direct sequel to Kingdom Hearts 2 as some might have expected but a followup to the various handheld games that came out in between the main second and third installments. In order to understand what is going on in the first ten minutes of Sora's new adventure, players would need to know what went down in a lot of these spinoff titles.
Right at the start of the game, characters begin to reference events that happened in previous handheld console installments. Characters that were introduced in PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS games suddenly have a major impact on the franchise's plot. Sora and other heroes casually begin to mention the villains and their status quo and expect players to already be familiar with it.
It makes the story feel dense, long, and next-to-impossible for a casual player to understand. Inadvertently, it makes the whole series seem inaccessible for all but the most dedicated fans. This is the habit that future installments will need to kick.
How Kingdom Hearts 4 Could Benefit From Ditching the Franchise's Worst Habit
The first trailer for Kingdom Hearts 4 was released last year and there currently isn't a lot of info on it. The third game was the conclusion of the Dark Seeker/Xehanort Saga which may mean that the upcoming game could be some kind of soft reboot. It's probably safe to assume that the game will introduce new threats and supporting characters while some old allies come in to help Sora.
If Kingdom Hearts 4 does opt to bring in characters from previous games, players should not have needed to play the last half dozen installments in order to key in on Sora's relationship with them. Like God of War (2018), it could offer players a place to jump into the franchise without having to understand the franchise's decades-old continuity. Obviously, the games shouldn't throw out everything from previous installments, but the story should be something that a player with otherwise little knowledge of the franchise's past can keep up with and understand.
Currently, it appears as if Kingdom Hearts 4 is already making the marketing mistakes of KH3, but there is no telling what the future holds for it. The trailer showed the return of the Heartless as well as Goofy's and Donald's involvement. Hopefully whatever story the developer opts to tell will be a bit more accessible to new fans and ditch the series' worst habits.
Kingdom Hearts 4 is currently in development.