How can Kingdom Hearts IV improve over III?

[Iscreamer1 100]

My suggestions are the following: 

• Make Sora smarter and less comical (maybe less cheery, he needs some trauma having being crystallized.) in addition, give him a personal conflict

• Give Riku some personal weight over Sora's disappearance and relationship with Kairi

• Make Kairi a stronger character

• Have Riku and Kairi replace Donald and Goofy as Sora’s main party members (they need more development after all)

• Give Maleficent and Pete an extremely larger relevance to the plot, especially if they want to recruit more Disney villains.

• Give Mickey, Donald and Goofy their own playable scenario

• Only three Disney worlds, three Final Fantasy worlds and three original worlds (all with relevance, all original plots and no pointless shot for shot recreations)

• Make the game darker and more mature with an older and savvier audience in mind (I.e. don’t be afraid to use words like “die” and “kill” more than once)

• Tie up all the loose ends (we do not need more questions than answers)

• No more convoluted stuff, keep the story simple

• Better pacing and plot

• Grounded combat (see The Killer Critic’s revision of KHIII’s gameplay)

• No redemption or misunderstood bullshit for Braig or any of the other villains

• More screentime for the villains (as in more scenes of them interacting with each other)

• Adequate focus on the other heroes

• No awkward or cringy moments (like those laughs at the end)

• No cryptic speeches from any of the villains

• Maybe see if Vanitas can return as a villain or an anti-hero who sides with Sora

• Give the characters more physical affection

• Have Sora fight the final boss all by himself or with Riku and Kairi by his side.

Any other ideas?

Edited June 28, 2021 by Iscreamer1

[King_Graham 135]

Honestly, I'll be happy if they just cut back on the ingredient reminders(or equivalent) from party members and balance out the frequency and variety of attraction commands. Also, I was a bit bothered by the flashing flowmotion indicators.

[InersBaron 0]

Amazing list of critical needed improvements 👌🏼 agree with everything u said except quantity of Disney worlds. Think at least, the bare minimum should be 5. Honestly they should just put u in the creative department of staff 😄

[The Transcendent Key 12,109]

This is a pretty decent list, but I don't think it should just be limited to Kingdom Hearts IV, but to all the games that will come in this saga. I'm sure Nomura and his creative story and gameplay team will keep ironing out the kinks!

I do like the villains being cryptic, though. It keeps us guessing as to what their true intentions are, and besides, it would be boring if they laid out their plans so obviously from the get go. The mystery is part of the fun, ya know?

[ocean's rage 772]

5 hours ago, Iscreamer1 said:

 

• Make the game darker and more mature with an older and savvier audience in mind (I.e. don’t be afraid to use words like “die” and “kill” more than once)

no

[SweetYetSalty 330]

I agree with a few options on that list. Especially the Sora, Riku, Kairi group. Long overdue for them to have something of a adventure together.

[Dagesh Lene 366]

I agree with some of these, but I think others are just wishes that are not likely to happen.

I think there are two things that we really need in order for Kingdom Hearts IV to be an improvement: a better paced story and gameplay that is more fun.

The pacing of the story was my main issue with Kingdom Hearts III. It felt like it started right in the middle of a story, with Master Yen Sid explaining Sora's mission to him. It also felt like most of the important stuff didn't happen until the end of the game. Finally, the ending of the story felt very abrupt and made it feel more like a cliffhanger ending than a conclusion to the Dark Seeker Saga, an issue that I felt was fixed with Re:MIND.

While I personally did not have an issue with the gameplay, once I played the game with the new abilities that we got in the free update, I could never go back to the old way of playing.

[jbmasta 67]

A small quality of life change, being able to make the minimap full screen. In Kingdom Hearts 3 there are some areas like the swamp in Kingdom of Corona or the various snowfields of Arendelle that are so easy to get turned around and lost in. If this kind of expansive world design continues, it'd be good to pull up the map and see the whole map rather than just a section of it in the corner of the screen.

More than nine save file slots. That this wasn't patched into 3 with the various updates is baffling and many players have had to sacrifice save files due to replaying or having saves at specific points like boss fights.

[DisneyXPixarfan95 36]

I agree with the listing you put and there are many things they can change for future KH titles (Kingdom Hearts IV) following Kingdom Hearts III, but the following changes that they can improve are:
 

• Bring back Reaction Commands from Kingdom Hearts II
• Make the Original worlds as large and expansive as the Disney worlds
• Going inside a building and house like in past KH games. As much as I enjoy the open world exploration from Kingdom Hearts III, they made certain areas such as Rapunzel's Tower, Elsa Ice Castle, the houses and buildings from The Caribbean, San Fransokyo, and especially the Old Mansion in Twilight Town inaccessible making them feel like walls or sets.
• More Final Fantasy characters
• Have more Female Disney characters in your party
• The pacing not feeling rushed
• The Number of Disney worlds being around 10-11 as in Kingdom Hearts II (6 new Disney worlds, 3-5 returning) instead of just 7-8 Disney worlds.
• Improve the gameplay and story.
• Tie up loose ends.

[The Transcendent Key 12,109]

I'm excited to see what Nomura will do with the series, story, gameplay and world design wise! I hope we get more original worlds in the future and balance them with the Disney worlds!