The bulk of what I read this week is fans’ fading interest in the continuation of the Kingdom Hearts series. I went through a lengthy reddit thread where fans shared frustrations and epithets about losing interest (or angrily questioning why people would lose interest) in a game that’s been in production for far too long. The arguments, besides the length of production, for losing interest in the game range from a disinterest in the increasingly convoluted plot, an annoyance with the seriousness of the plot, anger at the “stupidity” of the writing, and frustration with how the franchise has been spread out throughout the years.
The main titles have always been exclusively available to the PlayStation consoles, and the multiple spinoffs have been respectively exclusive to different handheld devices — the Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, PSP, 3DS. The argument with that, then, is that casual fans have a right to lose interest in the game, given that they won’t understand anything happening in KHIII because the series branched off in devices they did not have.
Now, the counterargument is the … outright false… claim that those spinoff games aren’t important to the overall plot and casual fans can probably pick up where they left off at KHII (11 years ago). The spinoff games are important to understanding the plot, and if you’re one of those people who neeeeeds the plot to make 100% sense at all times, well first you shouldn’t be playing this series in the first place, but second you would have at least had to play the spinoff games released in between 2 and 3.
The other counterargument is that fans can just recap by watching videos! Because every casual fan will no doubt love the idea of sitting in front of multiple videos explaining the plot and lore of the game series they left in their childhood (11 years ago).
With the impending release of KHIII, gamers and journalists alike have been speculating on the success of the installment once it does finally release, pointing to the same arguments I listed in the first paragraph, but mostly to the incredibly long gap between the games.
Some fans also condemn the overanalysis and anger related to the complicated plot. That’s developed game writing! they say. Or, why does it even need to make sense? It’s a game!
The big issue KHIII will face is the lack of hype from casual fans because, despite the mixed feelings from very involved fans, those involved fans will pick it up no matter what. There’s also the rumor that Square, the game’s company, is pushing the release back to make it exclusively available on Nintendo’s new console? That would open up a whole new can of worms, but fans don’t seem to be acknowledging the rumor as of yet.