Kingdom Hearts 3 vs Final Fantasy XV

Before I get into arguments I'd like to illustrate to the audience what Square Enix has claimed that Final Fantasy XV (FFXV) will be in terms of story and content. ~~ Story ~~ There is one major aspect that need to be addressed that I personally think is very important. FFXV seems to take a lot of inspiration from Shakespeare's Hamlet. A quote from the work is featured prominently in the trailer and that same trailer also exhibits many aspects of the work such as the likely murder of the main character, Noctis's, father and his subsequent desire for revenge. In addition to this other people have noticed more likely similarities between the two works including how the heroine Stella parallels Ophelia; it is speculated that the bearded man in a suit represents Hamlet's uncle Claudius; and that the three companions Noctis travels with likely represent Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Horatio [1]. Unfortunately a lot of this is speculation, but it is supported by an official statement by Square claiming that the game shares many similarities with the Shakespeare work. This first factor is significant because Shakespeare is widely considered to be one of, if not the, greatest and most influential writer to ever live. His works are nigh universally beloved and works based on his stories often find success of their own. In FFVX's case, the story happens in a fantasy world where one country lives in a technological utopia far beyond that of the rest of the world. Noctis is heir to the throne of this kingdom, but one day a rival country invades and steals the crystal power and presumably ruins Noctis's life in doing so and the game will encompass his quest to retrieve the crystal. On the surface it is a very simple story. ~~ Narrative Comparison ~~ One of the major aspects of the Final Fantasy franchise is that while all of the stories are related thematically, none of the major titles are actually connected to one another. I mention this because such is not the case with the Kingdom Hearts (KH) franchise. I present to you readers a video; this video explains the entire time line of KH and is almost an hour long [2]. This video is full of spoilers and once watching it you realize that to understand the story of KH in its entirety you really do need to play every game spanning the PS2, GBA, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, PSP, and soon the PS4. That is a lot of content to cover and that content has been consistently released for the past 11 years. Needless to say things have gotten complicated. Characters from one game are getting new backgrounds, and world shaking revelations about events in the series happen on a regular basis. Here it is my contention that since KH is a single narrative, it has become overcomplicated. Is overcomplication a bad thing de facto? No, however it does detract from how much a casual consumer can really enjoy something. Let's say I only had a PS2 and therefore could only play KH, KH 2 and KH Re: Chain of Memories. This would leave me woefully ignorant about many important aspects of the game such as the significance of Ventus, Terra, and Aqua; Xehanort's full history and motivations; and what's currently happening with Organization XIII. All of these things are extremely important to the narrative of KH. This kind of confusion simply doesn't happen with Final Fantasy because most of its stories are self-contained, and many of them rank amongst the 100 most well regarded tales in video game history [3], whereas KH didn't make the cut. Before you start blasting that source, I'll explain that it's an aggregate list that compiles its own list based on the lists make by prestigious video game media outlets. ~~ Rebuttals ~~ "The inclusion of flowmotion is something which is unattainable for the Final Fantasy series due to Kingdom Hearts being a hack and slash at heart and Final Fantasy being a turn based game...(due to its inherent characteristics of turned base fights, teams of 3-5 people and the fact that final fantasy is unlikely to become hack and slash)." My opponent's main contention is how the gameplay of KH' action-based gameplay differs from that of Final Fantasy's which is traditional turn-based or a variation of the same such as the Active Time Battle system. Unfortunately it seems that my opponent did not get the memo. FFXV will, in fact, be an action hack-and-slash game that quite possibly could include the flowmotion system [4][5]. In fact, if you watch the gameplay video I provided you'll notice that the character movies in a way that seems similar to the way that flowmotion works in Dream Drop Distance. ~ "...the worlds of Kingdom Hearts 3 are likely to be incredibly moving and provide hours of gameplay to the player, which is normal for a FF game..." Here my opponent goes on about the worlds of KH and how they're so great and everything. Then he concludes this paragraph by saying that the Final Fantasy games do the exact same thing. Which is true. In any given Final Fantasy game you can spend hours upon hours just exploring the worlds that the creative team has designed for your pleasure. Just because the worlds of KH have the factor of Disney nostalgia doesn't make them better than the original worlds of Final Fantasy. ~ "Of course, it is fine to simply state fictional theory, but several reasons as to why Kingdom Hearts 3's potential is so much greater than Final Fantasy XV's potential is because it is coming out at least a couple of years after Final Fantasy XV." With this my opponent brings up a good point. Since KH 3 is being released after FFXV the development team will get to look at FFXV to correct potential problems in KH 3. However I don't give this point much credit due to the fact that both games are currently in development. FFXV's development definitely began before KH 3's own development, but they are both still unfinished games being developed at this point in time. This fact means that even though KH 3 may come out later, the same basic technology is being used in their development and it is doubtful that the team at Square would be able to change much about KH 3 based on the critical reception of FFXV without seriously setting back its developmental progress. ~ "This means that Kingdom Hearts fans (which spans in the millions much like final fantasy) have built an immense 6 years of expense towards this final game." Yes, the franchises are similar in that they have millions of fans. However, the comparison is disingenuous because one can hardly compare the popularity of a Millennial series to one of the franchises that basically made role-playing games what they are today and has stood the test of time for 26 years. Final Fantasy as a franchise is immensely more popular than KH even with regards to the fact that Final Fantasy is much older [6]. KH is generating more hype because of a vocal minority, but the latest Final Fantasy title is always amongst the most anticipated games of the year. ~~ Conclusion ~~ My opponent's criticisms are either void, or ill-thought. He puts KH on a pedestal without regards for that fact that without Final Fantasy's massive success KH wouldn't exist. He claims that the characters can't generate the same kind of feelings in the player because there's only one game about them. To that I say he must have forgot about Cecil in Final Fantasy IV, Terra in Final Fantasy 6, Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith in Final Fantasy VII, Titus and Yuna in Final Fantasy X and arguably Lightning in Final Fantasy XIII. All of these characters are as beloved, if not more beloved than any of the original characters in KH. [1] http://tinyurl.com... [2] Video 1 http://www.youtube.com... [3] http://tinyurl.com... [4] Video 2 http://www.youtube.com... [5] http://tinyurl.com... [6] http://tinyurl.com...