306: Mickey's Epic

[AyreonMaiden]

Mickey IS a badass in KH. Too bad that's all he is.

It's too easy to make a stylish badass out of someone like Mickey Mouse. This is hardly an achievement. Give him a dark cloak, zippers out the ass, edgy one-liners like "They'll pay for this," Yoda acrobatics and BAM! Instant badass. Nothing more, nothing less. I've not seen much, if at all, development outside of this over the course of what I've played of the series, and for my money "badass" entails more than zippers, cloaks and flips. The funny part is that if there IS any development of his character, I'll be pointed to the handheld games, those presumptuous and infuriating "spinoffs" that are all too necessary for the full experience.

Epic Mickey, while your mileage WILL vary wildly (I personally adore the game), is at least trying something more interesting by making him the hero who happens to also be the root of the evil that plagues Oswald's humble little world. An interesting twist presented in a way that doesn't make me feel like they made him edgy in predictable ways. In my opinion, much better than LOL YODA WITH ZIPPERS. I haven't beaten it yet, so I don't know how successful it is in the end, but so far I'm enjoying Epic Mickey's take far more than anything KH related.

 

[Belbe]

Honestly, KH1 was about the most epic thing to hit the world by joining those forces and doing it so flawlessly. It's just too bad that everything that came after it was so half hearted...if they realised they'd struck gold the world would be a better place already. Mickey was given the key to his return as reigning king of the universe, and he threw it away to be not so epic lol.

 

[MirrorForTheSun]

Personally, I think it's all kinda rendered useless when you consider that KH2 was far less about Disney than KH1 was. Given how much Nomura is prone to concentrating on his DARKNESS HEARTS DARKNESS PAIN original characters, does anyone actually think that Mickey and company are going to get a fair shake in KH3? I personally doubt it.

 

[Genixma]

To bad Disney and Square Enix went overboard with all those hand held tie ins... Man was the beginning of KH2 confusing if you hadn't played CoM...

Squareisney took their time explaining the armored keybladers. And even if you did play CoM the beginning of KHII was still confusing because we are still like when the heck did this Roxas guy get here? KH w/o Sora? -hopefully- but nope. In the end KHII and Days taught us one valuable thing in life...it sucks to be Roxas.

 

[punipunipyo]

If only Disney had deliver what they had promised for Epic Mickey, it had a REALLY good start in the Development phase, but it was carried out with piss poor execution... and I think Kingdom Hearts up the standard too much for Epic Mickey to go dark... perhaps, If they had given the project to American McGee to do this, and turn it in to a psychotic/REAL dark tone, Epic Mickey could have pulled off what was on paper... did anyone saw the pictures from the pre-production phase? they were making something TOTALLY DARK! I loved that one zombie/steam punk junk goofy! McGee would TOTALLY dig that...

 

[The Electro Gypsy]

Erm, Mickey really wasn't the star of KH, the main characters kind of were....

Shame it's taking them so bloody long to release 3, and I know it will never be released on PC so it's highly likely I'll never get to play it even thought it's easily one of my favourite game series

 

[Dr. wonderful]

Erm, Mickey really wasn't the star of KH, the main characters kind of were....

Actually, he was SUPPOSED to be the main character. it's why Sora outfit on KH1 look werid, it belong to Mickey mouse.

Good article funk. I love the Hollow bastion cutscene the most:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKhAALZG8e4

It proved that

1) Mickey Mouse CAN get mad.
2) Donald is a very scary duck.

 

[zajohnson]

I don't think my childhood will be complete until Kingdom Hearts 3 comes out...
And for those of you that don't like the handhelds, try out Birth by Sleep. Yes, I digress that the KH series may be handheld fodder now, but the story is just as captivating and intense in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep.
The thing is, though, is that I don't think that 358/2 days nor Coded were very uplifting to the story. Yes, they had great storylines, but inside stories about Organization XIII weren't fully needed. And Re:Coded was a TRUE filler. It was a great game, but a complete waste of time that could have been spent on KH3.
But Birth by Sleep does give what is needed to bring out a Kingdom Hearts 3: a reason for why things are.
Birth by Sleep brings in a new problem, and one that must be accomplished in a later game, being Kingdom Hearts 3.
I dunno how I am gonna play Dream Drop Distance when it comes out....
And I just want a console version, I know I can borrow a friends PS3 or something...
But, seriously, Bring out Versus XIII for the diehard FF fans, cut XIII-2 in my opinion, and go right to where the serious profit is, and fan support: Kingdom Hearts 3.
It had bettah be awesome. Again, my childhood is not complete without that game... :O
Bring back Kingdom Hearts for consoles!
(cough cough re release in HD KH1 and KH2 cough cough maybe to keep us happy too cough cough)

 

[airrazor7]

I agree with this article whole heartedly. The Kingdom Hearts series offered gaming experiences that I haven't had in any other games. The series may soon start beating a dead horse with all of the spin-offs, side stories, prequels and tech demos(they need to just make a 3rd installment in the series, it's amazing how companies never make the games that fans are begging to buy) but I jumped into the series as neither a Disney fan or Final Fantasy fan and I really enjoyed the games (at least the ones I played).

To be a bit more on topic, one of the neatest things about the game is the character Mickey. Most perceive him as a bad-ass (I completely agree) however I get the feeling that the developers did not set out to intentionally make him appear this way; I choose to believe that King Mickey's role was just a matter of how the epic storyline fell into place, which makes it all the more interesting.

 

[MasterV]

Epic Mickey sought to give meaning to the character by taking what was already there rather than trying to pretend Mickey could be something he wasn't (in the case of Kingdom Hearts, a certifiable bad ass). Considering how many people that don't even care for Disney had wanted to play the game because of this, because it was a new and fresh interpretation of a character they thought they knew while staying true to the years of history, I think it grabbed an audience it wouldn't have before.

Whereas Kingdom Hearts only truly grabbed Final Fantasy fans first, and what few Disney die-hards continue to exist after.

This man says it all.

In my eyes Kingdom Hearts was an angsty anime-style interpretation of Mickey (and the Disney crew), a forced bad ass if you will, to cater to the Final Fantasy crowd. Not bad per se, but not to my liking.

I very much enjoyed Epic Mickey, even though he's my least favourite Disney character. Why? Because it stayed true to the source material of him, AND it was a great game.

I never quite liked the fact that everyone underplays it's success. So what if it didn't light up the charts day-one? Does that mean anything? Are we Hollywood? No. It did remarkably well, despite the general lack of awareness and the middling reviews.

 

[DugMachine]

Great article. Couldn't agree more, KH made me love Disney characters all over again. On another note, was it just me or did this article give anybody dejavu. I swear i've read this somewhere else, or at least one of the paragraphs...

 

[Raziel_Likes_Souls]

You know, number 2 had it's flaws, but I still thought it was pretty good. Minus the disappointing X and Triangle battle with the 1000 Heartless. And the Final Battle Turning into X and Triangle to win. And X and Triangle to win the game. You know, I think the reaction commands might have become a bit heavy handed later on, along with the whole convoultion with the Ansem and DiZ shit. Still, it was a good reason to include Christopher Lee. If only DiZ had a Golden Gun. Or the Eye of Mordor.

Mickey is still Obi motherfucking Wan in the series, thankfully. Unless Kingdom Hearts III gets delayed along with the TWEWY sequel due to all the 9001 FES[sub]1[/sub] editions of fucking FF XIII.

[sub]1[/sub][sub]Yeah, I know, Persona 3: FES doesn't have anything to do with Square, I'm just making a point about the crazy amount of FF XIII sequels there are.[/sub]

EDIT: And then the nostalgia drops like a bomb:

 

[SpaceMedarotterX]

You know, number 2 had it's flaws, but I still thought it was pretty good. Minus the disappointing X and Triangle battle with the 1000 Heartless. And the Final Battle Turning into X and Triangle to win. And X and Triangle to win the game. You know, I think the reaction commands might have become a bit heavy handed later on, along with the whole convoultion with the Ansem and DiZ shit. Still, it was a good reason to include Christopher Lee. If only DiZ had a Golden Gun. Or the Eye of Mordor.

Mickey is still Obi motherfucking Wan in the series, thankfully. Unless Kingdom Hearts III gets delayed along with the TWEWY sequel due to all the 9001 FES[sub]1[/sub] editions of fucking FF XIII.

[sub]1[/sub][sub]Yeah, I know, Persona 3: FES doesn't have anything to do with Square, I'm just making a point about the crazy amount of FF XIII sequels there are.[/sub]

KH3 is only on delay because the team who does it is doing Versus, and KH3 will use the Versus engine. Versus has been delayed because Wada hates Nomura and pushed his project to the back of the que

 

[Raziel_Likes_Souls]

You know, number 2 had it's flaws, but I still thought it was pretty good. Minus the disappointing X and Triangle battle with the 1000 Heartless. And the Final Battle Turning into X and Triangle to win. And X and Triangle to win the game. You know, I think the reaction commands might have become a bit heavy handed later on, along with the whole convoultion with the Ansem and DiZ shit. Still, it was a good reason to include Christopher Lee. If only DiZ had a Golden Gun. Or the Eye of Mordor.

Mickey is still Obi motherfucking Wan in the series, thankfully. Unless Kingdom Hearts III gets delayed along with the TWEWY sequel due to all the 9001 FES[sub]1[/sub] editions of fucking FF XIII.

[sub]1[/sub][sub]Yeah, I know, Persona 3: FES doesn't have anything to do with Square, I'm just making a point about the crazy amount of FF XIII sequels there are.[/sub]

KH3 is only on delay because the team who does it is doing Versus, and KH3 will use the Versus engine. Versus has been delayed because Wada hates Nomura and pushed his project to the back of the queue

Case in point, Wada's making the KH III delay KH III in order to making an unnecessary add-on that is tangentially related to it's original game.

Inb4 Persona 3 being called out as exactly that.

 

[SpaceMedarotterX]

You know, number 2 had it's flaws, but I still thought it was pretty good. Minus the disappointing X and Triangle battle with the 1000 Heartless. And the Final Battle Turning into X and Triangle to win. And X and Triangle to win the game. You know, I think the reaction commands might have become a bit heavy handed later on, along with the whole convoultion with the Ansem and DiZ shit. Still, it was a good reason to include Christopher Lee. If only DiZ had a Golden Gun. Or the Eye of Mordor.

Mickey is still Obi motherfucking Wan in the series, thankfully. Unless Kingdom Hearts III gets delayed along with the TWEWY sequel due to all the 9001 FES[sub]1[/sub] editions of fucking FF XIII.

[sub]1[/sub][sub]Yeah, I know, Persona 3: FES doesn't have anything to do with Square, I'm just making a point about the crazy amount of FF XIII sequels there are.[/sub]

KH3 is only on delay because the team who does it is doing Versus, and KH3 will use the Versus engine. Versus has been delayed because Wada hates Nomura and pushed his project to the back of the queue

Case in point, Wada's making the KH III delay KH III in order to making an unnecessary add-on that is tangentially related to it's original game.

Inb4 Persona 3 being called out as exactly that.

Not exactly, Versus is Nomura's "Take That" at Wada, who he blatantly openly despises. Versus is his own interpretation on where the FF franchise should go, I.E. trying a different setting for the 'Fantasy' and much different gameplay. The only thing it shares with XIII is similar names for beings like fal'Cie.

Now XIII-2 is pretty much an add-on of worthlessness to a bad story

 

[Raziel_Likes_Souls]

You know, number 2 had it's flaws, but I still thought it was pretty good. Minus the disappointing X and Triangle battle with the 1000 Heartless. And the Final Battle Turning into X and Triangle to win. And X and Triangle to win the game. You know, I think the reaction commands might have become a bit heavy handed later on, along with the whole convoultion with the Ansem and DiZ shit. Still, it was a good reason to include Christopher Lee. If only DiZ had a Golden Gun. Or the Eye of Mordor.

Mickey is still Obi motherfucking Wan in the series, thankfully. Unless Kingdom Hearts III gets delayed along with the TWEWY sequel due to all the 9001 FES[sub]1[/sub] editions of fucking FF XIII.

[sub]1[/sub][sub]Yeah, I know, Persona 3: FES doesn't have anything to do with Square, I'm just making a point about the crazy amount of FF XIII sequels there are.[/sub]

KH3 is only on delay because the team who does it is doing Versus, and KH3 will use the Versus engine. Versus has been delayed because Wada hates Nomura and pushed his project to the back of the queue

Case in point, Wada's making the KH III delay KH III in order to making an unnecessary add-on that is tangentially related to it's original game.

Inb4 Persona 3 being called out as exactly that.

Not exactly, Versus is Nomura's "Take That" at Wada, who he blatantly openly despises. Versus is his own interpretation on where the FF franchise should go, I.E. trying a different setting for the 'Fantasy' and much different gameplay. The only thing it shares with XIII is similar names for beings like fal'Cie.

Now XIII-2 is pretty much an add-on of worthlessness to a bad story

Ah, that's why it had jack shit to do with XIII's story and the fact that it looked more like Resonance of Fate than an FF game. Alright then, nevermind, I'm not even mad then.

 

[Axzarious]

Despite how popular the series is, there is one question I have always asked: Why have they not made a movie based around it? Heck, even just a movie based off the characters Square Enix made for it...

Personally my favorite parts of the plot are the parts that largely ignore the Disney AND Final Fantasy characters- This is probably why Birth By Sleep was my favorite installment of the series I have played so far. Most of the disney and final fantasy characters are absent, or only there briefly as a whole.

 

[Dhatz]

important point: always prototype everything before making it, have the prototypes tested, don't make game worse than people expect/want.

 

[SpaceMedarotterX]

Another thing of note on 'Mickey is a badass in Kingdom Hearts' is that Minnie can cast Holy, presumably they were an adventuring duo who married and became royalty with her as his white/black mage.

 

[PunkRex]

I still remember in the first one when Night on Bald Mountain starts up and the indistinguishable spire in front of you transforms in Chernabog and then again when One Winged Angel kicks in and theres a flash of light and Sepiroth unfurls himself... these moments made me tremble.

Its the wings man, they got them wings.