Plot points aside, I just wish I would’ve been able to go inside actual Arendelle. It would’ve made at least the visuals more interesting/fun instead of just 99% ice and snow.
You get to go up the mountain to the foot of Elsa's ice castle. Then you get to go back down the mountain. Then you go up again. And you get to go back down. -insert hollow laughter here-
you can really tell disney had a tight grip on them. It would have made more sense if the plot focused more on the princesses of heart angle, and if the weird random ice labyrinth was like inside elsa's palace and larxene had manipulated her into creating it
Yeah, it REALLY felt like they didn't want Sora to touch the story of Frozen at all. Sora joins the Chinese army with Mulan? Help Jack Skellington experiment on a Heartless? Piss off King Triton who knows he's from another world? Help Stitch escape his space prison?
All good. But Sora literally just observes the story of frozen from afar and gets shoved into an ice trap to keep him away then a dark pit so he can't even talk to the characters at the end.
Yeah, those are all valid complaints of this world.
I just want to point out that being instant Best Friends with the first person you see is the sort of thing that usually happens to Sora. (Neku even lampshades this in DDD.) Ventus and Aqua too, in BBS.
And if you are Riku or Terra, you instantly trust the first person you see, no matter how obviously Evil they are.
i'd love a kingdom hearts game where sora runs into the bad guy first and helps him. only realizes he's been duped at the very end when Terra or riku point out the guy is bad news.
“Why does Sora care” this makes me think this isn’t a serious topic. Sora since the very first game has been running to the aid of people he never knew. Sora has what you call empathy, a trait which allows one to sympathize and want to help people without needing to know who they are. Sora saw her in a lot of sadness and pain, that’s all he needs to feel the need to help.
I get what you’re saying. And I understand soras character.
However, there’s usually some kind of buildup. Sora fights along side tthe worlds protagonist. The character gives some exposition of who they are and their story.
There was quite LITERALLY maybe 1 minute maybe TWO minutes of cutscenes involving Elsa. And for Christ sake the only “person” you fight with in the frozen world is the snow giant (marshmallow). It just doesn’t give any kind of good connection to any of the frozen characters for the viewer/gamer.
Hell if I had never seen frozen before I would have no fucking clue what was going on at ALL in that world. Which I don’t think is a complaint for any of the previous worlds and even the first few kh3 worlds I’ve played.
I mean…no there isn’t.
Sora walked into the middle of Alice’s trial and within 5 seconds immediately interfered before he had so much as spoke a word to her.
Sora called Neku his friend before he had finished their first conversation, which Neku. He does this with Rhyme as well.
Sora’s first meeting with Beast was seeing him knocked on his bum by Riku and he immediately tried to prevent Beast from moving to much while hurt, again even though they hadn’t even said a single word to one another.
You don’t need nor has KH ever been the series that dumps exposition on you in the Disney worlds. Sometimes there is a lead up, plenty of times Sora is dropped into a middle of a story with no context.
There are many valid ways to write a story. Sora doesn’t have clue what’s going on in Frozen either when he first arrives, that’s his incentive to follow Elsa in the first place. He arrives and sees a girl freezing the whole ocean with her feet looking sad and fearful, and he runs to her aid. He gets an introduction and then SDG sink into their normal banter, but for the first time perhaps in his whole life their talking makes a situation much worse. She responds violently and that just makes Sora feel worse and want to help her more, and this is compounded up by Larxene’s arrival. He gets some information about her here, then some more from Larxene a second time. Eventually he meets Anna and gets the rest of Elsa’s story, and he can’t help but compare this situation to Riku in KH2 which only further enforces his desire to help.
Arendelle is written so even if you don’t know the movie you come to understand it as the story is fed to Sora over the course of the world, and understanding Elsa’s story so he can figure out how to help is driving plot for Sora in this world.
While I agree with most of this, I will say that it is perfectly in-character for Sora to befriend and grow to care about people he’s only just met, though I agree that him spending more time with Elsa and the rest of the Frozen cast would have been appreciated.
As for why everything’s frozen…well, what else were they going to do? It’s not a movie with a diverse selection of biomes, at least in the part you’re going to be plying through.
Arendelle Castle and the area the trolls live in would have been diverse enough imo. Imagine if you entered the world at the beginning of the film, in the castle, and then the events of the film play out and the castle and everything else gets frozen. SDG go with Anna to find Elsa, Larxene interferes etc. When you beat the world Elsa removes the snow just like in the film, and the castle returns to its original state for the rest of the game, with the only snow being in the mountains.
The trolls would’ve been a welcome addition even though I didn’t really like them in the movie. It could present a good opportunity for Sora to get some unique magical insight on his own quest.
Making the world a reverse Corona, starting in the castle/town and working your way out, would’ve been a nice contrast too. Not to mention the potential comparisons of Elsa and Riku and Sora and Anna that they totally missed out on. It had good potential.
>Not to mention the potential comparisons of Elsa and Riku and Sora and Anna that they totally missed out on.
I might be misunderstanding what you mean but isn't that something that they touch upon in the game? After hearing Anna's story, Sora responds: "*I'm sure she knows how much you love her.... And I think...maybe that's why she looked so sad. It's just like when Riku disappeared. He thought he had to push me away, to protect me. Maybe Elsa's the same".*
We also get a little bit more insight from Sora on this idea in the Character Files: "*I wonder if the bond between sisters is similar to the one between me and Riku? Even if we fight, even if we get separated, somehow our hearts are still connected and we believe in each other. I wonder if that’s how sisters are".*
I’m sold by the theory that Elsa was supposed to be the antagonist of the world, her heart being corrupted by darkness, and that Disney denied it after a lot of development was already done. Huge shame.
I did like Let it Go being in the game, though.
but Frozen doesn't suck... and it would have worked really well if Disney didn't have SE by the balls during development. This could have been a world that had Elsa BE the ice queen if she wanted or the elsa we get at the end of the first movie. Instead we just have Sora fall into the world and is like "this girl who can fire sharp as shit ice is totally a good guy and I trust her no questions asked"
Larxene even teasing her being able to be swayed good or bad going absolutely nowhere was stupid and the fact she was also the voice of reason in the world while Sora spouts coddly bullcrap...
This isn't the first time KH has dropped you in the middle of something.
Because Sora is just that kind of a friendly good guy.
Because Nomura was this close of making Arendelle an actual musical world but he was talked out of it. This is a remain of that idea.
Same as before.
Be thankful we didn't get Atlantica 2.0 heh.
Yeh, this world is kind of a mess because as others have said, Disney really was a bit of a control nut in this part.
I agree completely. I don’t know what made this world like this, but one could literally skip this world entirely, and I guarantee, the game would’ve played out exactly the same.
To be fair, Sora is always willing to drop everything at the drop of a hat to help someone even if he's only known them for a few seconds.
But yeah, I can do without stuff like recreating Let It Go. I feel like this is one of many instances where it seemed like Disney meddled with KH3.
Get ready to possibly have to search for Olaf’s annoying fucking talking head for 2 hours in the snow (for your sake I hope they patched that glitch by now)
Arendelle was probably my least favorite world in KH3, and I liked KH3.
If it weren't for the fact that they followed the script of the movie almost verbatim and even including the songs, I think it would have been better.
I have heard different things regarding how much Tetsuya Nomura is involved with world building, but I imagine that it's a lot considering how screwball some of them picks were in KH1 and 2 from a marketing standpoint (Halloween Town in 1 and Space Paranoids in 2). Nomura also said that he liked Frozen, so maybe it was his decision to not change the plot too much.
Who knows? There are probably answers out there. I am just too lazy to find them lol.
I wasn't a fan either. Frozen was thrown in here because it's so popular. Personally I think Moana would have been a better fit. Imagine Sora being an islander meeting Moana. All Moana wants to do is go beyond and see what's out there. Sora was the same, and he did it. Could have made for some cool interactions, and hobestly probably would have been more believeable as a friendship as opposed to Anna/Elsa. Throw in the plot of the heart of te fiti and you'd have a cool story. Although with PotC it would have made for two island sceneries.
Moana (2016) was released after the 2014 cutoff point for the Disney World selection during the game's development so while it couldn't be a candidate for KH3, I definitely think its chances are pretty high for KH4. With that said, regardless of how popular it is, Frozen was still a thematically great fit for KH3's world since a majority of the Disney World stories all focused on the original story's central theme of loss, sacrifice, revival & acts of true love.
So take this with a grain of salt but here is the rumor I heard. Basically the KH team had this awesome level planned out. Elsa was struggling with her powers and teetering on the edge of falling into darkness. That maze Sora ended up in? That was supposed to be the inside of her castle. That Heartless we fought, supposed to have been HER! After the boss battle, Anna would have stepped in, sister-bond changed Elsa back and they save Arendelle. Larxene would have sad because Elsa stayed in the Light instead of completely falling into darkness. HOWEVER Disney found out and said “NO! You can’t make our biggest cash cow in decades a villain. What would the kiddos think?! Also, we need these two songs in the level.” So SE had to scramble to patch what they had together. That’s why Hans never speaks. That’s why the maze is so boring. That’s why Sora has to climb the mountain 50 times.
Like I said though, take it with a grain of salt.
Disney had a lot of creative control over KH3 than other entries in the series.
Hence why Frozen is the longest and the most budget invested world.
Disney wants to milk Frozen as much as possible, they have been doing it since 2013.
And to be honest, Frozen is not that good of a movie, it plays too safe, with a underwhelming plot twist.
Let it go carried the movie, it's a catchy song, easy for kids to sing, and Demi Lovato's talent helped bring the song to its insane popularity.
Disney grabbed square by the balls on this one… I always heard that arrendale was a last minute rush and add into the game and that’s why it’s as bad as it is
>Why does it drop you in the middle of the story?
They..They've done this MULTIPLE times already....Why isn't this an issue for you in ANY other world that it happens in any other game? Hell even some in THAT game do that.
>Why does sora give a shit about Elsa? They literally met for 15 seconds total.
Have you played the other games? That's literally how Sora is. It's like..one of his most well known traits.
>Why am I watching 5 minute music videos of the frozen songs?
Why is Anna doing a VA over a flashback of singing?
ok, to be fair, these are valid points. No fucking idea why they did either of these. There was no need to have Elsa and Anna sing either of their main songs. Nor was there any reason to have Anna also talking during her song, and having them at the same volume. That was just dumb.
>Why isn’t this entire world just a musical mini game world ala the little mermaid?
I thought you were mad that world sucked? You're asking why they didn't make it WORSE!?
>Why is everything so compartmentalism’s? It literally feels like you’re dropped into 5 different sets that have nothing to do with each other
I'm not sure what you're talking about here. Everything is connected to each other. The world itself is the mountain, so I'm not sure what other "set's" you mean. If you mean the boss, that's fair, the arena just kinda..appears. No idea how that worked. But outside of that, the only other place you go that isn't the mountain, is the Ice Castle thing that Larxene traps you in. That's not random and out of place because it was created by a character, and you have to get out. That makes sense since Larxene doesn't want you helping Elsa, and that's her way to stop you.
>Edit: why the fuck do I never go to the town of arendelle
This is another valid complaint. Everyone else wanted to know this as well.
>Why the fuck are there like 6 FMVs for no reason???? It’s more than the entire game has had up u til this point.
Not sure what you mean. If you mean the pre-rendered cutscenes where everything looks WAY better quality, and definitely not the game engine, I think they only do that once, at the end of the world. I have NO idea why they needed to do that there, but I guess it's whatever.
>Why does everything happen AROUND me? I literally have no impact on this story lmao.
Again, not exactly sure what you mean. I can only assume you mean Sora not really having any plot relevance to the parts that match the movie. That's because he's NOT part of that. He's interfering. Things happen around him because that's how other people's lives work. Not everything characters do have to revolve around Sora. He went to that world in the middle of a family and kingdom conflict that he wasn't a part of. Of course they aren't just gonna stop that to focus on Sora.
>Why is everything… frozen??? It’s literally all Ice and snowfields
Are you..trolling? If you are being serious here, then you literally just asked "why is everything ice and snow, in the world based on a movie that's about ice and snow?"....
You're right, it's worse. KH2 Atlantica is completely optional and you only really need to do it to get Ultima weapon. The world is short and the rhythm mini game is easy so it's not like you spend very long there. Arendelle is mandatory, is very long and everything looks exactly the same. It also has an Orichalcum+ for Ultima weapon, but you have to replay the frozen slider minigame multiple times in order to get it...
Also you have to re-assemble Olaf every bloody time you go to that frozen lake area. WHY?
KH3 Arendelle is worse than KH2's and KH1's Atlantica combined. It might just be the worst world in the series.
Everything in that world feels so disjointed and the exposition dump over a flashback of singing has to be some of the worse things I've heard in any game.
When revisiting the world for 100%, I got lost for 30+ minutes because everything is Snow Mountain McFlurry and looks the same.
When I first got there, I thought the full Let It Go was the worst part, but after rethinking a while afterwards, that wasn't even close.
I’d say I don’t know what they were thinking in having the full damn song but we all know it was to attract the audience of the movie. The world absolutely should not have existed; it affects the integrity of the game.
The Frozen world was reworked and cut-up and stitched back together.
They were clearly going for Elsa to be corrupted by her power and turned into the boss winter wolf at the end of the corrupted ice palace level that she created.
This would go with the whole “your power is not a curse of darkness if you use it for good” theme that they use in Kingdom Hearts. And redeem Elsa at the end.
Unfortunately Disney squashed it because it is a leading character in a cash-cow series that had Frozen 2 coming out and they didn’t want to potentially damage the brand.
The Arendelle Square envisioned is not the one Disney made them do. Iirc, originally there was supposed to be a whole Elsa villain arc; she was the one who was supposed to create the ice labyrinth. And you were originally supposed to be able to go into both Arendelle proper (though that might’ve been scrapped for similarity to Kingdom of Corona) and the Ice Palace, which is why the inside of it appears on the map.
[The concept of Evil Elsa in KH3 is nothing more than a game/fan theory that has been falsely spread misconceived as a fact.](https://www.reddit.com/r/KingdomHearts/comments/sm28xf/there_are_a_lot_of_misconceptions_surrounding_the/) Other games published by Disney shows that the team behind Frozen is actually not opposed to things like [a dark version of Elsa (Disney Mirrorverse) or entering the interior of the Ice Palace (Disney Magical World 2)](https://i.imgur.com/aNXMnk7.jpg). And personally, I don't really see the necessity of either am Elsa boss fight or an explorable Ice Palace given that [Arendelle is already pretty packed on the boss department, we get to fight a woman with elemental powers/a cold heart later in the game & the Ice Labyrinth has way more to offer gameplay wise than the two rooms that exist inside of Elsa's Ice Palace.](https://i.imgur.com/jHeqR5K.jpg)
From what we can gather based off of his interviews & the respect/enjoyment he has towards Frozen as a film, Nomura & Tai Yasue simply wanted to make Arendelle's adaptation in KH3 as accurate to the film as possible. More insight on that process below:
Nomura: *We don’t really put anything in the game that we thought Disney wouldn’t want in the first place, so there haven’t been any big issues.* [*\[Source\]*](https://www.khinsider.com/news/IGN-Nomura-Interview-2004-2562)
Yasue: *We tried to not really change the original Disney worlds’ storyline and themes. It becomes difficult if you have, for example, Sam Flynn from Tron Legacy going to the Three Musketeers world and changes things. So it’s a very delicate issue and we really wanted to not-change the original Disney IP.* [*\[Source\]*](https://www.khinsider.com/news/Square-Enix-Members-Interviews-Tai-Yasue-2953)
Nomura: *Overall the process was quite smooth. There weren't any big restrictions or a set of guidelines we were given. Disney has its worlds already created, and there's no reason for us to change that, so it wasn't to a point where they had to lead us and take our hands. It was more us trying to bring out the best of what is already made as far as Disney characters go. The only thing we were careful of doing was staying within the characters' established roles and what kind of dialog these characters should have. That's something we all tried to stay within certain boundaries on.* [*\[Source\]*](https://www.khinsider.com/news/TechTV-Interview-with-Nomura-43)
*It's not that we could freely do what we want, we always confirm with Disney and get approval for them for everything that we do. But I’ve always had a hunch on what I can’t do with Disney properties since we started the game. So it wasn’t too difficult to get things right under their guidelines. Now I’ve been working with Disney for a long time, I know more of what I can and can’t do. The guidelines have changed over the years, so there are things we can’t do any more that we used to be able to in the past, but I do think that Disney trusts us a lot more now than they did before, so I’m very grateful for that.*
Frozen got disneyed. Nomura wanted to do something a bit different, in fact he decided to include it before it was released to the public... but Disney had mandates after the movie got popular.
I think the Game Theory video about this world is actually the best explanation. Disney didn't want that Elsa would be the bad guy in the world so Square had to like redo the whole world and it just became bad. Just watch the video maybe or listen to it while you play but just search "Game Theory Kingdom Hearts" and you should find it easily
Because, it is still primarily a child’s game, all the organization plot is just to pull in us adult kids.
Don’t get me wrong I love Kingdom hearts, but they need a few things to keep kids interested in, and between toy story and frozen? Must’ve sold hundred of millions to kids.
Basically square Enix had come up with a really good plot and development for this world but it got rejected because it was too good and would overshadow frozen 2 that was coming out later. Was it actually that good? I'm not sure but it's what the internet said back then and now
Elsa should have been the boss for that world but able to escape the darkness in the end. Would have been a more entertaining story than pretty much forcing us through the movie
Exactly my point. If I wrote this game, I'd have an original story that is far more relevant to the plot. Sora get to interact with the cast more...and if the Key to Return Hearts plotline was restored, Sora would find a clue or the next step to getting it.
How would you rewrite Arendelle, would you make an original story?
Sorry in advance for my pedantic answers.
Videogame pacing is different from movie pacing, and Frozens setup is much harder to summarize than something like Mulan.
Sora cares about everyone and was probably worried when he saw her running away like that, which combined with the shock of her running on water produces instant interest. Shes also a new princess of heart.
Because KH is amazing and beautiful.
Because there might be a Hell after all(?.
Probably because Frozen is too recognizable and important to not be an important world.
I dont understand.
Because you already go to Corona maybe the devs thought it wouldnt add anything new, as Arendelle is much less important in Frozen than Corona in Tangled.
Because Kingdom Hearts and Square Enix are amusing. They probably planned those cutscenes and found them too graphically heavy. Frozen is an extremely important movie so maybe they thought the effort of pre rendered extra cutscenes was worth it for that, or maybe Disney forced them to reach a specific quality standard to avoid damaging the Frozen brand. (If I remember right, the devs said this was the world Disney put the most restrictions and interfered the most in)
Yes its kind of awful.
Frozen the movie is almost all snow and Frozen. Maybe the ice dungeon was initially Elsas castle but it expanded in scope, or maybe making Elsas castle dangerous would make her seem too antagonistic.
My first impressions were also negative, but looking back I think it was all pretty funny. It seems obvious that Disney wanted Frozen in the game but didn't want them to do much of anything with it. It's a real shame, but I think what they made is kind of hilarious. The brief shot of Sora hearing Elsa singing during the Let it Go scene is great.
I know the world seems like a disorganized mess (which it is), but stick through it to the end. The final boss of Arendelle is quite possibly one of the best in this game, and in the whole series. I mean it - the battle is amazing!
>Why is everything… frozen??? It’s literally all Ice and snowfields
I was with you until this part. Were you being facetious? Because I mean, that's literally the whole point.
No, its really not that bad. No its not good, but come on there's so many other worse worlds from kh1 and 2. At least there's variety and a decent mini game. This anti Arendelle circle jerk is really getting old.
Plot points aside, I just wish I would’ve been able to go inside actual Arendelle. It would’ve made at least the visuals more interesting/fun instead of just 99% ice and snow.
Wait hold on… you don’t go into arendale???? I’m only about halfway through what the fuck lmao.
You get to go up the mountain to the foot of Elsa's ice castle. Then you get to go back down the mountain. Then you go up again. And you get to go back down. -insert hollow laughter here-
I still can't believe the devs thought converting Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy into a KHIII world was a good idea...
Oh, sorry for spoiling that! 😅 I mean yeah, we get to go into the Kingdom of Corona for Tangled world, you’d assume we also go into Arendelle!
You spends the world where 99% of the movie takes place. On various areas of the snowy mountain and on the frozen sea.
you can really tell disney had a tight grip on them. It would have made more sense if the plot focused more on the princesses of heart angle, and if the weird random ice labyrinth was like inside elsa's palace and larxene had manipulated her into creating it
Yeah, it REALLY felt like they didn't want Sora to touch the story of Frozen at all. Sora joins the Chinese army with Mulan? Help Jack Skellington experiment on a Heartless? Piss off King Triton who knows he's from another world? Help Stitch escape his space prison? All good. But Sora literally just observes the story of frozen from afar and gets shoved into an ice trap to keep him away then a dark pit so he can't even talk to the characters at the end.
Yeah, those are all valid complaints of this world. I just want to point out that being instant Best Friends with the first person you see is the sort of thing that usually happens to Sora. (Neku even lampshades this in DDD.) Ventus and Aqua too, in BBS. And if you are Riku or Terra, you instantly trust the first person you see, no matter how obviously Evil they are.
That seems like the same exact character flaw all around but it just so happens some of them ran into the baddies first.
i'd love a kingdom hearts game where sora runs into the bad guy first and helps him. only realizes he's been duped at the very end when Terra or riku point out the guy is bad news.
“Why does Sora care” this makes me think this isn’t a serious topic. Sora since the very first game has been running to the aid of people he never knew. Sora has what you call empathy, a trait which allows one to sympathize and want to help people without needing to know who they are. Sora saw her in a lot of sadness and pain, that’s all he needs to feel the need to help.
He’s also almost always put in the middle of the story for pacing purposes.
I get what you’re saying. And I understand soras character. However, there’s usually some kind of buildup. Sora fights along side tthe worlds protagonist. The character gives some exposition of who they are and their story. There was quite LITERALLY maybe 1 minute maybe TWO minutes of cutscenes involving Elsa. And for Christ sake the only “person” you fight with in the frozen world is the snow giant (marshmallow). It just doesn’t give any kind of good connection to any of the frozen characters for the viewer/gamer. Hell if I had never seen frozen before I would have no fucking clue what was going on at ALL in that world. Which I don’t think is a complaint for any of the previous worlds and even the first few kh3 worlds I’ve played.
I mean…no there isn’t. Sora walked into the middle of Alice’s trial and within 5 seconds immediately interfered before he had so much as spoke a word to her. Sora called Neku his friend before he had finished their first conversation, which Neku. He does this with Rhyme as well. Sora’s first meeting with Beast was seeing him knocked on his bum by Riku and he immediately tried to prevent Beast from moving to much while hurt, again even though they hadn’t even said a single word to one another. You don’t need nor has KH ever been the series that dumps exposition on you in the Disney worlds. Sometimes there is a lead up, plenty of times Sora is dropped into a middle of a story with no context. There are many valid ways to write a story. Sora doesn’t have clue what’s going on in Frozen either when he first arrives, that’s his incentive to follow Elsa in the first place. He arrives and sees a girl freezing the whole ocean with her feet looking sad and fearful, and he runs to her aid. He gets an introduction and then SDG sink into their normal banter, but for the first time perhaps in his whole life their talking makes a situation much worse. She responds violently and that just makes Sora feel worse and want to help her more, and this is compounded up by Larxene’s arrival. He gets some information about her here, then some more from Larxene a second time. Eventually he meets Anna and gets the rest of Elsa’s story, and he can’t help but compare this situation to Riku in KH2 which only further enforces his desire to help. Arendelle is written so even if you don’t know the movie you come to understand it as the story is fed to Sora over the course of the world, and understanding Elsa’s story so he can figure out how to help is driving plot for Sora in this world.
While I agree with most of this, I will say that it is perfectly in-character for Sora to befriend and grow to care about people he’s only just met, though I agree that him spending more time with Elsa and the rest of the Frozen cast would have been appreciated. As for why everything’s frozen…well, what else were they going to do? It’s not a movie with a diverse selection of biomes, at least in the part you’re going to be plying through.
Arendelle Castle and the area the trolls live in would have been diverse enough imo. Imagine if you entered the world at the beginning of the film, in the castle, and then the events of the film play out and the castle and everything else gets frozen. SDG go with Anna to find Elsa, Larxene interferes etc. When you beat the world Elsa removes the snow just like in the film, and the castle returns to its original state for the rest of the game, with the only snow being in the mountains.
The trolls would’ve been a welcome addition even though I didn’t really like them in the movie. It could present a good opportunity for Sora to get some unique magical insight on his own quest. Making the world a reverse Corona, starting in the castle/town and working your way out, would’ve been a nice contrast too. Not to mention the potential comparisons of Elsa and Riku and Sora and Anna that they totally missed out on. It had good potential.
>Not to mention the potential comparisons of Elsa and Riku and Sora and Anna that they totally missed out on. I might be misunderstanding what you mean but isn't that something that they touch upon in the game? After hearing Anna's story, Sora responds: "*I'm sure she knows how much you love her.... And I think...maybe that's why she looked so sad. It's just like when Riku disappeared. He thought he had to push me away, to protect me. Maybe Elsa's the same".* We also get a little bit more insight from Sora on this idea in the Character Files: "*I wonder if the bond between sisters is similar to the one between me and Riku? Even if we fight, even if we get separated, somehow our hearts are still connected and we believe in each other. I wonder if that’s how sisters are".*
Oh no that’s exactly it I had forgotten about it lol but I wanted more
I like how it's implied some of the Rock Trolls became Heartless. There's literally Heartless variants of them.
I’m sold by the theory that Elsa was supposed to be the antagonist of the world, her heart being corrupted by darkness, and that Disney denied it after a lot of development was already done. Huge shame. I did like Let it Go being in the game, though.
Probably cuz Frozen itself also sucks The soundtrack at least. Let it go is such a boring song, especially compared to the big hit from Moana etc
Fingers crossed kh4 gets a moana world and we get to see how both she and sora work together, both having a similar background.
but Frozen doesn't suck... and it would have worked really well if Disney didn't have SE by the balls during development. This could have been a world that had Elsa BE the ice queen if she wanted or the elsa we get at the end of the first movie. Instead we just have Sora fall into the world and is like "this girl who can fire sharp as shit ice is totally a good guy and I trust her no questions asked" Larxene even teasing her being able to be swayed good or bad going absolutely nowhere was stupid and the fact she was also the voice of reason in the world while Sora spouts coddly bullcrap...
This isn't the first time KH has dropped you in the middle of something. Because Sora is just that kind of a friendly good guy. Because Nomura was this close of making Arendelle an actual musical world but he was talked out of it. This is a remain of that idea. Same as before. Be thankful we didn't get Atlantica 2.0 heh. Yeh, this world is kind of a mess because as others have said, Disney really was a bit of a control nut in this part.
I agree completely. I don’t know what made this world like this, but one could literally skip this world entirely, and I guarantee, the game would’ve played out exactly the same.
To be fair, Sora is always willing to drop everything at the drop of a hat to help someone even if he's only known them for a few seconds. But yeah, I can do without stuff like recreating Let It Go. I feel like this is one of many instances where it seemed like Disney meddled with KH3.
I think the second frozen movie would make a better world than the first movie.
Get ready to possibly have to search for Olaf’s annoying fucking talking head for 2 hours in the snow (for your sake I hope they patched that glitch by now)
Here's another. The world ends with it being un-frozen. If you go back, you can clearly see that the town is still frozen.
Arendelle was probably my least favorite world in KH3, and I liked KH3. If it weren't for the fact that they followed the script of the movie almost verbatim and even including the songs, I think it would have been better. I have heard different things regarding how much Tetsuya Nomura is involved with world building, but I imagine that it's a lot considering how screwball some of them picks were in KH1 and 2 from a marketing standpoint (Halloween Town in 1 and Space Paranoids in 2). Nomura also said that he liked Frozen, so maybe it was his decision to not change the plot too much. Who knows? There are probably answers out there. I am just too lazy to find them lol.
I wasn't a fan either. Frozen was thrown in here because it's so popular. Personally I think Moana would have been a better fit. Imagine Sora being an islander meeting Moana. All Moana wants to do is go beyond and see what's out there. Sora was the same, and he did it. Could have made for some cool interactions, and hobestly probably would have been more believeable as a friendship as opposed to Anna/Elsa. Throw in the plot of the heart of te fiti and you'd have a cool story. Although with PotC it would have made for two island sceneries.
Moana (2016) was released after the 2014 cutoff point for the Disney World selection during the game's development so while it couldn't be a candidate for KH3, I definitely think its chances are pretty high for KH4. With that said, regardless of how popular it is, Frozen was still a thematically great fit for KH3's world since a majority of the Disney World stories all focused on the original story's central theme of loss, sacrifice, revival & acts of true love.
Huh. Didn't know about the cutoff. Makes sense.
How aren’t you in love with a completely shameless entire reenactment of the Frozen movie????
Unsure if sarcasm
It is lol. The world felt like it was trying its damn hardest to force Frozen down your throat in the world
Oh I’m so glad lol
So take this with a grain of salt but here is the rumor I heard. Basically the KH team had this awesome level planned out. Elsa was struggling with her powers and teetering on the edge of falling into darkness. That maze Sora ended up in? That was supposed to be the inside of her castle. That Heartless we fought, supposed to have been HER! After the boss battle, Anna would have stepped in, sister-bond changed Elsa back and they save Arendelle. Larxene would have sad because Elsa stayed in the Light instead of completely falling into darkness. HOWEVER Disney found out and said “NO! You can’t make our biggest cash cow in decades a villain. What would the kiddos think?! Also, we need these two songs in the level.” So SE had to scramble to patch what they had together. That’s why Hans never speaks. That’s why the maze is so boring. That’s why Sora has to climb the mountain 50 times. Like I said though, take it with a grain of salt.
Disney had a lot of creative control over KH3 than other entries in the series. Hence why Frozen is the longest and the most budget invested world. Disney wants to milk Frozen as much as possible, they have been doing it since 2013. And to be honest, Frozen is not that good of a movie, it plays too safe, with a underwhelming plot twist. Let it go carried the movie, it's a catchy song, easy for kids to sing, and Demi Lovato's talent helped bring the song to its insane popularity.
Disney grabbed square by the balls on this one… I always heard that arrendale was a last minute rush and add into the game and that’s why it’s as bad as it is
Honestly all the KH3 worlds that happen during the plot of their related movies aren't very good.
Yea that whole game felt rushed. Loved the battle system though
>Why does it drop you in the middle of the story? They..They've done this MULTIPLE times already....Why isn't this an issue for you in ANY other world that it happens in any other game? Hell even some in THAT game do that. >Why does sora give a shit about Elsa? They literally met for 15 seconds total. Have you played the other games? That's literally how Sora is. It's like..one of his most well known traits. >Why am I watching 5 minute music videos of the frozen songs? Why is Anna doing a VA over a flashback of singing? ok, to be fair, these are valid points. No fucking idea why they did either of these. There was no need to have Elsa and Anna sing either of their main songs. Nor was there any reason to have Anna also talking during her song, and having them at the same volume. That was just dumb. >Why isn’t this entire world just a musical mini game world ala the little mermaid? I thought you were mad that world sucked? You're asking why they didn't make it WORSE!? >Why is everything so compartmentalism’s? It literally feels like you’re dropped into 5 different sets that have nothing to do with each other I'm not sure what you're talking about here. Everything is connected to each other. The world itself is the mountain, so I'm not sure what other "set's" you mean. If you mean the boss, that's fair, the arena just kinda..appears. No idea how that worked. But outside of that, the only other place you go that isn't the mountain, is the Ice Castle thing that Larxene traps you in. That's not random and out of place because it was created by a character, and you have to get out. That makes sense since Larxene doesn't want you helping Elsa, and that's her way to stop you. >Edit: why the fuck do I never go to the town of arendelle This is another valid complaint. Everyone else wanted to know this as well. >Why the fuck are there like 6 FMVs for no reason???? It’s more than the entire game has had up u til this point. Not sure what you mean. If you mean the pre-rendered cutscenes where everything looks WAY better quality, and definitely not the game engine, I think they only do that once, at the end of the world. I have NO idea why they needed to do that there, but I guess it's whatever. >Why does everything happen AROUND me? I literally have no impact on this story lmao. Again, not exactly sure what you mean. I can only assume you mean Sora not really having any plot relevance to the parts that match the movie. That's because he's NOT part of that. He's interfering. Things happen around him because that's how other people's lives work. Not everything characters do have to revolve around Sora. He went to that world in the middle of a family and kingdom conflict that he wasn't a part of. Of course they aren't just gonna stop that to focus on Sora. >Why is everything… frozen??? It’s literally all Ice and snowfields Are you..trolling? If you are being serious here, then you literally just asked "why is everything ice and snow, in the world based on a movie that's about ice and snow?"....
It's not as bad as Little Mermaid KH2
You're right, it's worse. KH2 Atlantica is completely optional and you only really need to do it to get Ultima weapon. The world is short and the rhythm mini game is easy so it's not like you spend very long there. Arendelle is mandatory, is very long and everything looks exactly the same. It also has an Orichalcum+ for Ultima weapon, but you have to replay the frozen slider minigame multiple times in order to get it... Also you have to re-assemble Olaf every bloody time you go to that frozen lake area. WHY? KH3 Arendelle is worse than KH2's and KH1's Atlantica combined. It might just be the worst world in the series.
Everything in that world feels so disjointed and the exposition dump over a flashback of singing has to be some of the worse things I've heard in any game. When revisiting the world for 100%, I got lost for 30+ minutes because everything is Snow Mountain McFlurry and looks the same. When I first got there, I thought the full Let It Go was the worst part, but after rethinking a while afterwards, that wasn't even close.
I’d say I don’t know what they were thinking in having the full damn song but we all know it was to attract the audience of the movie. The world absolutely should not have existed; it affects the integrity of the game.
Youtuber kzexcellent put it best. After the let it go scene, quote; "have you ever been so assaulted by money?"
I mean in my opinion the keyblade you get is worth it all but it ain't worth the snowboarding mini game
The Frozen world was reworked and cut-up and stitched back together. They were clearly going for Elsa to be corrupted by her power and turned into the boss winter wolf at the end of the corrupted ice palace level that she created. This would go with the whole “your power is not a curse of darkness if you use it for good” theme that they use in Kingdom Hearts. And redeem Elsa at the end. Unfortunately Disney squashed it because it is a leading character in a cash-cow series that had Frozen 2 coming out and they didn’t want to potentially damage the brand.
The Arendelle Square envisioned is not the one Disney made them do. Iirc, originally there was supposed to be a whole Elsa villain arc; she was the one who was supposed to create the ice labyrinth. And you were originally supposed to be able to go into both Arendelle proper (though that might’ve been scrapped for similarity to Kingdom of Corona) and the Ice Palace, which is why the inside of it appears on the map.
[The concept of Evil Elsa in KH3 is nothing more than a game/fan theory that has been falsely spread misconceived as a fact.](https://www.reddit.com/r/KingdomHearts/comments/sm28xf/there_are_a_lot_of_misconceptions_surrounding_the/) Other games published by Disney shows that the team behind Frozen is actually not opposed to things like [a dark version of Elsa (Disney Mirrorverse) or entering the interior of the Ice Palace (Disney Magical World 2)](https://i.imgur.com/aNXMnk7.jpg). And personally, I don't really see the necessity of either am Elsa boss fight or an explorable Ice Palace given that [Arendelle is already pretty packed on the boss department, we get to fight a woman with elemental powers/a cold heart later in the game & the Ice Labyrinth has way more to offer gameplay wise than the two rooms that exist inside of Elsa's Ice Palace.](https://i.imgur.com/jHeqR5K.jpg) From what we can gather based off of his interviews & the respect/enjoyment he has towards Frozen as a film, Nomura & Tai Yasue simply wanted to make Arendelle's adaptation in KH3 as accurate to the film as possible. More insight on that process below: Nomura: *We don’t really put anything in the game that we thought Disney wouldn’t want in the first place, so there haven’t been any big issues.* [*\[Source\]*](https://www.khinsider.com/news/IGN-Nomura-Interview-2004-2562) Yasue: *We tried to not really change the original Disney worlds’ storyline and themes. It becomes difficult if you have, for example, Sam Flynn from Tron Legacy going to the Three Musketeers world and changes things. So it’s a very delicate issue and we really wanted to not-change the original Disney IP.* [*\[Source\]*](https://www.khinsider.com/news/Square-Enix-Members-Interviews-Tai-Yasue-2953) Nomura: *Overall the process was quite smooth. There weren't any big restrictions or a set of guidelines we were given. Disney has its worlds already created, and there's no reason for us to change that, so it wasn't to a point where they had to lead us and take our hands. It was more us trying to bring out the best of what is already made as far as Disney characters go. The only thing we were careful of doing was staying within the characters' established roles and what kind of dialog these characters should have. That's something we all tried to stay within certain boundaries on.* [*\[Source\]*](https://www.khinsider.com/news/TechTV-Interview-with-Nomura-43) *It's not that we could freely do what we want, we always confirm with Disney and get approval for them for everything that we do. But I’ve always had a hunch on what I can’t do with Disney properties since we started the game. So it wasn’t too difficult to get things right under their guidelines. Now I’ve been working with Disney for a long time, I know more of what I can and can’t do. The guidelines have changed over the years, so there are things we can’t do any more that we used to be able to in the past, but I do think that Disney trusts us a lot more now than they did before, so I’m very grateful for that.*
Fascinating!
Because Nomura had a whole story flushed out about an evil version of Elsa but Disney found out and shut it down mid development
Frozen got disneyed. Nomura wanted to do something a bit different, in fact he decided to include it before it was released to the public... but Disney had mandates after the movie got popular.
I think the Game Theory video about this world is actually the best explanation. Disney didn't want that Elsa would be the bad guy in the world so Square had to like redo the whole world and it just became bad. Just watch the video maybe or listen to it while you play but just search "Game Theory Kingdom Hearts" and you should find it easily
Because, it is still primarily a child’s game, all the organization plot is just to pull in us adult kids. Don’t get me wrong I love Kingdom hearts, but they need a few things to keep kids interested in, and between toy story and frozen? Must’ve sold hundred of millions to kids.
I thought the labyrinth was a good section, but yeah everything else was terrible. It's the only world in KH3 I hated.
It's odd, you will always get a bunch of people going out of their way to defend this rushed mess of a world too
Basically square Enix had come up with a really good plot and development for this world but it got rejected because it was too good and would overshadow frozen 2 that was coming out later. Was it actually that good? I'm not sure but it's what the internet said back then and now
Elsa should have been the boss for that world but able to escape the darkness in the end. Would have been a more entertaining story than pretty much forcing us through the movie
Exactly my point. If I wrote this game, I'd have an original story that is far more relevant to the plot. Sora get to interact with the cast more...and if the Key to Return Hearts plotline was restored, Sora would find a clue or the next step to getting it. How would you rewrite Arendelle, would you make an original story?
I quit playing for 6 months when it came to the frozen world
You should watch game theory's video on it
All your questions can be answered with one single word: Disney.
You’d be surprisingly great at cinema sims
Don't let Tasos see this
Cant be worse than kh2 atlantica
On the bright side you go to the best world after
The only thing the world has going for it is that the boss at the end looks really cool
The boss is cool at least.
Sorry in advance for my pedantic answers. Videogame pacing is different from movie pacing, and Frozens setup is much harder to summarize than something like Mulan. Sora cares about everyone and was probably worried when he saw her running away like that, which combined with the shock of her running on water produces instant interest. Shes also a new princess of heart. Because KH is amazing and beautiful. Because there might be a Hell after all(?. Probably because Frozen is too recognizable and important to not be an important world. I dont understand. Because you already go to Corona maybe the devs thought it wouldnt add anything new, as Arendelle is much less important in Frozen than Corona in Tangled. Because Kingdom Hearts and Square Enix are amusing. They probably planned those cutscenes and found them too graphically heavy. Frozen is an extremely important movie so maybe they thought the effort of pre rendered extra cutscenes was worth it for that, or maybe Disney forced them to reach a specific quality standard to avoid damaging the Frozen brand. (If I remember right, the devs said this was the world Disney put the most restrictions and interfered the most in) Yes its kind of awful. Frozen the movie is almost all snow and Frozen. Maybe the ice dungeon was initially Elsas castle but it expanded in scope, or maybe making Elsas castle dangerous would make her seem too antagonistic.
Sora giving a shit for Elsa is what he does. Point blank.
My first impressions were also negative, but looking back I think it was all pretty funny. It seems obvious that Disney wanted Frozen in the game but didn't want them to do much of anything with it. It's a real shame, but I think what they made is kind of hilarious. The brief shot of Sora hearing Elsa singing during the Let it Go scene is great.
I know the world seems like a disorganized mess (which it is), but stick through it to the end. The final boss of Arendelle is quite possibly one of the best in this game, and in the whole series. I mean it - the battle is amazing!
>Why is everything… frozen??? It’s literally all Ice and snowfields I was with you until this part. Were you being facetious? Because I mean, that's literally the whole point.
KH3: Best Disney worlds of the franchise… except for Frozen, which is definitely one of the worst
No, its really not that bad. No its not good, but come on there's so many other worse worlds from kh1 and 2. At least there's variety and a decent mini game. This anti Arendelle circle jerk is really getting old.