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"BIG" Worlds in Kingdom Hearts
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- Published on Apr 18, 2026
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Music used (in order):
"A Walk in Andante" from Kingdom Hearts II (2005)
"Shipmeisters' Shanty" from Kingdom Hearts III (2019)
"Heroes' Gathering" from Kingdom Hearts III
"Traverse Town" from Kingdom Hearts (2002)
"Rito Village (Day)" from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)
"AR -Augmented Rhythm-" from Kingdom Hearts III
"A Pirate's Freedom" from Kingdom Hearts III
"A Pirate's Adventure" from Kingdom Hearts III
"Radiant Garden" from Kingdom Hearts III
"The Afternoon Streets" from Kingdom Hearts II 
Gaming
14:53 Unfortunately I would love to see you rank the worlds by how much you think Sora enjoyed them
Edit: Finished the video - wishing you well as you find your groove again, Pat. In the meantime, please take care of yourself!
seconded, what a fun vid idea
Kind of want him due to a com and recom boss ranking video just to see him rank genie jafar at the bottom
*Deep Jungle:* "...who?"
would Castle Oblivion have its own tier? He didn't but also doesn't remember it so it cancels out
Imo, Pirates, Atlantica, 100 acre wood, and Olympus
part of why I like KH3 so much is because it dabbled with different levels of openness and linearity for its worlds. variety is the spice of life! so I certainly agree with you in hoping KH4 doesn't go full open world, but we can have some open world as a treat.
Agreed. I can very much forgive Monstropolis for being kinda linear (after all, it IS an office space. It kinda SHOULD be a series of linear hallways) when the Carribean is right there.
Agreed, the variety is nice, but I found most of the worlds to feel very empty as there’s not much to do in them. It’s very much just set dressing while you go from point A to B, with no backtracking or reason to explore the level any further outside of emblem hunting. KH2 is somewhat similar, but I found it work much better there as each area is traversed multiple times so it starts to feel very familiar. There’s also just more visual variety, with each “room” designed to be visually distinct from the next.
In Land of Dragons f.e., you go from the army base, to a bamboo area, to the rocky cliff area, to a destroyed army base in the mountain, to a cave, to the wide snowy mountaintop, to the imperial city itself. Contrast that to Corona f.e. where you go from one forest area to another that looks pretty much identical, then you get to the swamp which is the same except darker now. The only area that’s slightly different is the kingdom itself and you barely explore it. Land of Dragons is smaller if we’re talking scale but it feels much bigger than Corona as there’s just more environmental variety. With Corona specifically, cutting out the gorge where that one action scene in the movie takes place was a massive missed opportunity, as was cutting the villain bar or the kingdom prison. Instead we just got forest, forest and more forest.
This is imo the cost of large open worlds as opposed to the old segregated room philosophy, the worlds just get very homogenized (in isolation, obviously each world in the game is distinct from the others).
my ideal scenario for this is quadratum being this big san fransokyo like open space and the different worlds sora would go to following the regular kingdom hearts experience
Bro we, yes WE, are FULLY enabling that world ranking from Sora's perspective, you are asking the wrong people to stop you
as soon as he said it I knew it was the only world ranking I ever really wanted to see
might be the longest it's taken a video game essayist to say 'ludonarrative dissonance' after making their channel
I'm convinced that Pat could make a 50 minute long video ranking every character's zippers and pockets entertaining
I mean, he listed every SINGLE character that has ever appeared in the Kingdom Hearts series (and if I recall correctly, some that also didn’t), and ranked them. So something like that isn’t that outrageous.
And I’ll be honest, I’d watch a zipper ranking video.
Who wore the iconic zippers best
I'm also convinced any 50 minute long video ranking would be entertaining. But that theoretical zippers and pockets ranking would also mean someone would have to discuss the merits of Kingdom Hearts 2 Pete.
My headcanon is that after losing all the records from the journal due to the events of COM, jimminy decided he needed to be extra thorough.
So, in short, we can blame the organization and Namine for Jimminy tracking treasure chests now
Thanking Naminé for this... Ugh...
Pat the type of guy to say "scrub a dub dub" in the shower
Wouldn't you?
Pat the type of guy to jingle his keys a few times before unlocking the door to his home
That's "scrud a dub dub here in my tub" our valued individuals. Lol
And you don't?
Pat the type of guy to wiggle his fingers and say "ooh don't mind if I do" when offered donuts
I gotta say, the running bit of "half opacity image as a split-second gag" through the video got me good, I really love your editing.
17:35 tbf, Donald & Goofy are Sora's dads, and they're just providing gentle guidance while letting Sora make his own choices.
Hiro is like Sora's little cousin screaming orders at him through his headset while they play Fortnite
Barista-Sora as an extension of the cooking minigame in kh3 would be really neat, I agree
No matter how my day is going, when Pat drops a video, I'm automatically having a good day.
Since no other worlds explicitly say how large they are, I have to assume that the 100 Acre Woods is the biggest KH world. That's a whole lotta land
IDK we have the literal the caribbean as a kh world that's gotta be for then a measly 100 acres
@wildstarfish3786not explicit enough, it could be a 99 acre plot of the Caribbean and we'd be none the wiser
@thomasspalter5958aint china pretty big...? Or how big is trons world really?
Or if were gonna be broad.. Africa in Tarzan Or lion king?
Or the ocean in ariel?
How big do you think 100 acres is? Not sure where you're from, but it's like 0.15 square miles, 0.4 square Km, or 40 hectares. It's a big space for a backyard forest, for sure, but you're probably only talking about like 4 city blocks.
@wildstarfish3786we don't know if it is the whole Caribbean (we just explore some Islands) as in our world or just a reduced version. Same with China
I think it is safe to say Pride Lands and Atlántica are just small regular worlds
22:51 answer FUUUUCK NO I just want a good linear kingdom hearts.
If Sora knew how to computer, Hiro wouldn’t still be talking.
In KH4 he will get harassed via video call by an NPC, and he will learn how to block them, and it'll be the biggest character growth moment in the whole series.
I misread the title as “big words” and thought we were about to get spelling lessons with Marluxia
To be fair, that’s something this series loves too.
The first question is the pronunciation of “Marluxia”.
Is it “mar-lux-ia” or “mar-lu-shia”.
These are truly the biggest questions in the fandom.
@lucasknox4871 Gotta give it up to Xehanort and Marly for giving me "denouement" "also ran" and of course "feckless neophyte"
@KotaSlim25 Mar luke zer.
Like Luke zerd.
I've always felt that San Fransokyo could've had Aunt Cass' Lucky Cat cafe as a place where you can interact with Aunt Cass and buy healing items and ingredients (or, heck, give it a copy of Remy's Bistro minigame that's limited to just Sora making a latte) just to make the world feel a bit more alive and more like you're in a Big Hero 6 world.
Y'know, you're walking around with Baymax and you're like "Hey I wonder what Aunt Cass is up to?" so you go to that specific landmark.
Yeah I love San Fransokyo but the world exploration feels small as you only have Hiro’s Garage and ¼ of San Fransokyo.
At least with Olympus and especially The Caribbean you have more exploration and room to explore in both worlds.
and we can press triangle to pet Mochi!
Yeah, for all it's space, San Fransokyo had a distinct lack of recognizable locations from the movie.
This is a great point. San Fran has landmarks but they’re not really landmarks we care about, so they don’t stick in our head. Adding Aunt Cass’s, the school, Fred’s house, and a Krei skyscraper would at least help orient players more. Even small stuff, like if robot fighting was in a dedicated alleyway. They could have also included the island where they opened the first portal. There could be a transportation point at a dock, and that would be another landmark the player could orient themselves by. They could even take notes from the TV series and include the nearby woods with the fallen meteor. There’s so much potential.
I love everything you said here. I distinctly remember a really tall skyscraper somewhere in the middle of the San Fransokyo. I don’t think it’s got a distinct logo on it, but it should have been for Krei’s company.
And even if we can’t actually go to places like the colloge or the portal island, they should have been visible from inside the city limits. Kind of like the Statue of Liberty in Spider-Man PS4.
I feel like San Fransokyo tried to replicate NYC in Insomniac’s Spider-Man. Sprawling streets with landmarks, climbable skyscrapers with explorable rooftops, and just a massive world to play in. However, SF lacks the additional side quest and optional mini games (aside from Flash Tracer, of course). When I first played KH3, I was pretty bored going through the city to find the chests and emblems before looking up a guide. Conversely, I got lost in the Caribbean for HOURS for all the right reasons. I barely needed help with anything. And I LIKED getting all the crabs (I SAID WHAT I SAID!!!). All that said, I’m cautiously optimistic for Quadratum in KH4.
Surprised you didn't include an Extremely Goofy Movie reference in that bit about moving to college with your parents
Ok so we are ranking the worlds based on how much Sora enjoyed them next?
I know Pat won’t like this, but I’d honestly like more worlds designed like the Grid was in DDD.
Large, open areas, with a lot of verticality and expansive halls, but set into a mostly linear story progression, if that makes sense.
Dont just plop me into a city and say “find the next objective”. GUIDE me through big, interesting city land marks, like parks, back alleys, and big town halls.
I see what you mean, but The Grid is the worst part of DDD for me. I can't for the life of me understand how places connects (even if it's almost a loop) without checking the map every 5 seconds. And it's worse when Riku and Sora can't visit the same places, so when i actually remember how to get somewhere, the path is blocked because it's only available for the other character.
18:10 Heaters like "San Fransokyo needs a world design BBL" are why I keep coming back
Something thing I'd like to expand on that you touched upon in KH3 Carribean's favour, it's story also generally shorter than the rest of the worlds despite its size. From the opening segment to after you learn how to level up the ship is and 20-30 minutes without cutscenes (i don't remember how long the cutscenes are are off the top of my head, but i do remember them being a bit shorter too), and from there, you have the choice to explore or go straight for Davy Jones, making the world only take about half an hour compared to the 35min-1hr that other worlds take, so you never feel like you're in there for longer than you need to be, which helps it feel snappier and easy to navigate like the worlds in previous games, despite literally being an open ocean.
On a more personal note (aka, novel), I do hope that KH4 finds a balance between KH3's world design and previous games world designs (specifically KH1, with a little dash of KH2), something that has a feels exciting to explore and gives a lot of bang per buck if you want to take your time and see what your movement options can find or what magics interact with what environment, but still arcadey enough to breeze through in a handful of minutes if you just want to enjoy the story or combat. I always found the KH3 worlds too big for their own good, they feel like they take way longer to get through than needed due to the lack of room transitions and the maps still being linear despite being so much bigger, especially with worlds like Corona and Arendelle. Granted, I'm the kind of guy who almost exclusively sees the worlds during the main story on repeat playthroughs, so to me, the expanded size of the worlds probably hurts more than if I were to comeback to them later, made only worse by my generally negative feelings on KH3's story (which i will not touch on here). Maybe if the worlds were cut down a bit and you got a 2nd visit with a new story like KH2, that could help a bit so you have the full world without feeling like you're in there for too long, but that's more just speculation.
While we're self-flanderizing and since it's relevant to Pat as of this video's posting, this is (one of) the gripe(s) I have with Yooka-Laylee vs Banjo-Kazooie. Banjo worlds are actually quite small, but they made such good use of the space that it doesn't FEEL that way. There's hardly a corner you can turn and NOT find something worthwhile to investigate or somehow engage with, and the level design has a flow to it that basically leads you to anything important. It makes it fun and not TOO arduous a task to 100% the game.
Yooka, meanwhile, just felt like they made a beeeeeeeeg area for each world and then plonked down all the collectible requisites seemingly at random with like a whole mumbo's mountain worth of set decorated- but useless- space between each major objective. Without any reason for that empty space, I was just so aware of how much time it was taking to get anywhere, and it made 100%ing the game a chore and a goddamn half as it was so easy to get lost with so much fluff around, trying to find those last few collectibles (a problem a lot of people had, as they had to patch in a radar like immediately upon release).
(Also this design philosophy is what lead to Nuts & Bolts, but that's another rant and this comment is getting long already)
BUT YEAH, same thing with San Fransokyo. Like, okay, it *is* impressively big, but if you're not utilizing that space in an engaging way, then you're just making a big time-sink of a chore to explore.
There's a critique on BotW that your ending Call to Action reminds me of.
"People think they want complete control over their experience when what they really want is to cut down trees to cross ravines--something they'll never actually do if they have complete control over their experience"
5:16 OH my😆! I did NOT know you could get to the 3rd district balcony via that window. Thanks Pat
Pirates in KH3 is like, THE world to show off the game.
BH6 is THE example of why not everything should be open
Focus, S. You're heading off course.
So this is what it feels like for 30-year-olds to see the numbers 6 and 7 next to eachother...
Xehanort has the X-Blade and you know what that means.
9:17 As an Xbox player, I can confirm that Mounds Bars are the substitute for Platinum trophies
11:40 To be fair, I think they intended (for whatever reason) for it to be explored after the story portion
I think it depends on what type of gamer you are , like if you are the type to collect everything, open worlds are quickly tiring but if you don’t care about them you will have a good time. Also I think open worlds encourage a sort of aimlessness that I lost with age but remember fondly, like with botw I remember taking a year to beat ganon and instead just aimlessly wandering and creating my own fun adventures , and that’s something open worlds excels at
I definitely would like a nice open-world hub in Quadratum, preferably one that opens up more as you progress. That being said, I would prefer worlds that are less open and more self-contained, with one or two exceptions.
KH3 handled this the right way overall, making most of the worlds self-contained while giving us a few worlds that are much more open. I wish San Fran could have been handled better, but hey, it can serve as a nice foundation for the future.
Also, you're definitely not alone in feeling bummed out and unmotivated. Maybe that will give you some comfort, knowing that so many of us are also struggling and trying to make the most out of every day, in spite of everything.
It wasn't until the TotK sentence that a thought ocurred to me... what if Quadratum IS the only world in KH4? All the different disney worlds bleed into each other or at least the main map, not too dissimilar from, for instance, Mario Kart World. Or, more appropiately, 0.2.
I don't think it's that wild an idea, since Quadratum is supposed to be a dimension where those who have become disconnected from reality end up, kind of a parallel to The Dark World taking the various worlds whose hearts were lost to darkness and corrupting them. Not to mention, it's going to be deeply connected to the Chi saga, where a previous "age of fairytales" has been mentioned, an age where the world was one, before being fractured into the disney worlds we know. Perhaps Quadratum could be a recreation or parallel of that united world, or even that very same world in some time travel fuckery
20:37 Heck, there's even a Star Wars game where you board your ship and interact with a map to go between planets, and the rest of its gameplay is very Metroidvania, with some open "hub" areas. Fallen Order and Survivor are exactly what I'd want a Star Wars KH level to play like: Open-plan towns (like if all three districts of Traverse Town were one big map) with paths that are effectively one way corridors that loop around with some maze-like qualities (aka side paths) in the middle, before dropping you back at town, where you can board your ship, fly to a different world, and do it over again, but on Naboo this time, so prepare for an underwater section where you're *_not_* a mermaid!
One thing I got really annoyed with in KH3 was how the increased sizes of worlds didn't mesh with the screen transition checkpoint system. So often on Crit I would get myself killed because of an enemy spawn which two shots you on a good day and end up having to retrace my steps the entire way back there, only to die again and repeat the process. The only other option is to backtrack twice to hit a screen transition at the start of the room, and that just wastes a ton of time. If KH4 is going to be going forward with this open world concept, I'd really like it if collectables stayed collected between continues more than anything.
Call me greedy, but I really wanted to visit Tortuga in The Caribbean.
That was such an iconic setting in the movies that I wanted to explore.
The Dalmatians in KH1 WERE actually required for the secret ending though :p
The main problem of having bigger worlds with no loading screen is that if you die while exploring you loose all your progress
I think one of the reasons Caribbean works over San Fran is that San Fran feels too empty. It's a huge city! Where is everyone? They could have had busier pockets, or people you could talk to or who would occasionally give you items, or a segment where your tech glitches out and you could ask people for hints on where to go. It's also quite samey, you don't get the variety of exploration that I think a big space like that needs to feel interesting.
The Caribbean feels busy around Port Royal, like an actual bustling town should, and it helps that you have the comparison with the islands being empty. You get such variety in the environments within a world and I think that's what makes it feel genuinely expansive.
I can write you that script on the ranking the worlds based on Sora's enjoyment right now. Here it goes.
"Let's rank the worlds on a scale of how much Sora enjoyed them. He liked it, he liked it, he loved it, he liked it, it made him sad, he liked it, he liked it, he liked it, he loved it got sad then loved it again, he liked it, he got sad then mad, he loved it, he liked it, it made him sad." So on and so fourth. Any story heavy world sad or mad, any other world he liked, if it had pirates or Winnie the Pooh he loved it. Easy day 5-10 minute video.
I think what makes San Fransokyo especially feel worse to explore is the fact that you have to build your speed up again every time you jump, roll, fall off a short ledge, or vault over an object. I was already hating that LONG before I got to San Fransokyo, but this world is almost nothing BUT doing all of that.
With Quadratum being so built up narratively and based on a massive real life city, I always imagined it would be a huge open area, and then the Disney worlds would be smaller. The flow of the game would be exploring a bit of Quadratum, Disney world, back to exploring, and so on. I also think San Fran was probably a form of prototype for Quadratum, so I do expect it to be far better and more densely designed.
sanfransokyo feels like a boring zoo enclosure and honestly the toybox feels bigger
Visually, I thoroughly enjoyed my time in San Fransokyo. The city had be fascinated since I first saw that movie and to be able to explore it had me really excited. But that was indeed really all there was to it. After the initial sense of wonder, finding collectibles just became a slog.
San fransokyo is an open world in the same sense that Skyrim is an open world. The world is divided into two areas that are further divided into day an night time. These areas are accessed via loading screens. Which is to say, San Fransokyo is at best a partial open world.
Honestly, the idea of a Caribbean style world set in Star Wars/Treasure Planet that integrates the Gummi Ship could honestly go hard. Though I do think it requires more thorough integration of Disney worlds into the story.
When Pat posts I think "Wow Pat posted!" Really a Pat Posting moment, thanks Pat!
I would also love to see a ranking of how much Sora enjoyed all the worlds.
As someone who kinda loved the more open world approach I wouldn't mind open worlds at all if we had more stuff to do in them. KH is my fav game series of all time, but one of my biggest complaints is the lack of side content outside of beating all the super bosses and finding all the collectibles and synthesizing all the items. In the modern era of these games I would absolutely love to return to these worlds after completing their main stories to do second, smaller storylines and side quests. They kinda already played with the idea in KH3. Back at Olympus there's a kid who asks you to help him find five golden Hercules action figures, returning to Arendelle Olaf gets taken apart AGAIN and Elsa has a new sliding minigame for you to complete, in San Fransokyo Hiro has a new Flash Tracer course, and in The Caribbean you can talk to several citizens of Port Royal who will give you information on certain islands and special encounters. If KH4 is going to be using more open worlds (which is most likely) I want Square to double down on adding content available after completing the main storyline. Give us one or two new minigames for beating the campaign of each world along with a handful of new quest-lines. For example it would be cool to become a member of the ZPD at the end of a campaign for a "Zootopia" world and every time you return Chief Bogo has a new assignment for you.
I’m so thankful for this upload. San Fransokyo was probably the world I was looking forward to the most back in KH3. It missed the mark for all the reasons you mentioned. The intentionality of KH1’s world design, though significantly smaller, remains to be the most fun to explore. Totally on board with worlds that have less completion elements (chests/emblems) and more charisma. If San Fransokyo had an arcade to play all the Classic Kingdom mini games, or a battle bot dynamic in the streets at night, or access to the school/classroom to synthesize would’ve added so much life. I hope that message is clear for KH4
21:16 Pat says he hasn't seen the film in a while, but I tell you what, they could do a LOT with the realm of monsters.
Its not just the giant enemy crabs layer, thers alot of space down there. I'm thinking we could have a section like Arendell"s ice dungeon down there.
I personally want a more kh 3d approach. The more traditional segmented worlds, but with all that freedom of movement. Give me the Traverse Town mail room and let me literally bounce off the walls to my heart's content again...
I do quite like how tear of the kingdom handled getting all the shrines cause there isn’t an obvious list but you can still be expected to get them all without the internet. Cause all the grounded ones are associated with a root in the underworld and the roots are much easier to find and it’s much more managable to be certain you’ve checked every corner of a floating island.
I feel some developer actually managed to put themselves in the perspective of a player. Like for example in silksong, to get to act 3 you have to you have to complete all side quests. Not crazy when stated like that but:
- there’s nothing even hinting at that being what triggers it
- there’s nothing to indicate how many sidequests you are missing
- some side quests are hidden behind very bizarre requirements, worst of all being clearing out the house upgrade shop in the bell town.
Imagine if in hollow knight you got the king soul badge but the void heart even wouldn’t trigger because sly still has a rancid egg to sell. Who is going to think to correlate those two?
i think the main thing that separates carribean and san fransokyo is that it feels like there isn't anything to really find in san fran, it's just buildings, none of which you enter. wheras carribean each island usually had at least one thing and some were even mini dungeons.
I think the Yakuza series does open worlds the best out of any series I’ve played. It takes maybe 4 minutes to run across the whole map, but it feels so large because there’s stuff to do all over the map. The main map is in pretty much every game, but it feels so fresh and alive because each game more stuff was added to the same size map.
I was just about to comment about Yakuza as well.
I think a prime example of how a world can feel is the use of Yokohama in LAD vs Lost Judgement. I think both are phenomenal games, but LAD's Yokohama feels so lively and lived in. There's incentives to explore every corner of the map and see what you can find. I can literally recognize locations from Yokohama in photographs from my time spent there in LAD and IW.
LJ just used Yokohama since they already had the assets, and it shows. Since most the minigames are centered at the high school, the world is left feeling empty. It's lacks the bustle of Kamurocho since it's spread out and not a pleasure district. It falls so flat. It's one of the best stories in the Yakuza series, but the world is not engaging like other installments.
And then, there was Yokohama.
Quality over quantity.
I feel like the difference between Traverse Town and San Fransokyo is that Traverse Town felt big without compromising gameplay while San Fransokyo's size _does_ compromise the gameplay. For as much as the PS2 titles are constrained by the console's limitations, I feel like those limitations contribute to the focus on the task at hand while letting us envision how huge the world is. A really good example of this is The World That Never Was, as even though it can be boiled down to a series of hallways, it drives the objective (Taking down the rest of Organization XIII) while also implying a world bigger than our current objective (The sewer grates, buildings having their lights on, giant pipes and wires interweaving the streets, the various neon signs strewn about, Memory's Skyscraper, the crashed truck near the skyscraper, the Brink of Despair separating the rest of the city from The Castle That Never Was).
I like San Fransokyo. I love the vertical exploration, and the pacing of the world's missions is very fast. If you go only for the story missions in San Fransokyo, it's a very moving world (especially thanks to the movement and the ability to airstep on almost everything).
I mean, heck... that world has 4 bosses to fight (the rock golem, Catastrochorus, Dark Cubes and Dark Baymax), which is impressive when you consider it's the shortest Disney world in the game if you just go for the story missions.
And... I guess it's subjective, but I don't mind using a guide to help me find these 3 or 4 last treasures I couldn't find myself. Most of them I can find on my own. Though I will say it's probably because I've done many playthroughs of KH3, so I'm more familiar with San Fransokyo's layout compared to other players. Saying I can find most of the collectables by myself isn't fair.
my favorite thing in open world games is when there are quests or events that actually change the world visually, idk how they’d do that in kh but i’ve always found it really cool (also any collectibles should be marked with a shaded area to search cause otherwise guides are like the only realistic way 😭)
One thing I always loved about KH3's (Disney) worlds is that they felt like their own games.
KH3 actually does what you suggest for progressive rewards that with the lucky emblem where the game gives you small items that progressively get better as you get more emblems. In fact some speedruns go out of their ways to get certain lucky emblems for specific rewards. You also get Oathkeeper in the post game for getting all lucky emblems.
Lucky emblems are cataloged in Jimminy's journal though
San Fransokyo sucks lol
@jar@jarrellfamily1422 so are puppies. My point was more about the progressive reward is in the game. But yeah I do overall prefer them not being cataloged , though it doesn’t bother me too much.
I like how Pat picks on himself for bringing up his KH1 trutherism. It makes me imagine someone who both watches enough RegularPat to catch on to this trend and feel offended by it, but refuses to watch someone else
I've always thought SF would have worked a lot better if it had something like a simple crime system during the day and areas with heartless during the night. When the player engages with these their reward being a treasure chest.
It would massively cut the number of chests, make the exploration more interesting and varied and fit the Hero theme mixed with classic KH gameplay
"Mile high and an inch deep" fuckin kill em Pat
"a world design BBL"
Goddammit, Pat.
Regarding big open world collectibles, I feel like I don’t find every nook and cranny as interesting in an enormous world bc and enormous world by construction is bound to have them. In KH1, the time investment to make a full exploration felt reasonable enough not to feel exhausting and finding a tucked away reward or remembering where a trinity was felt incredibly rewarding. If the intentionality behind exploration took into account the average duration a player would be willing to engage with that component of the game before succumbing to guides, I think that would be amazing.
I just want the worlds to feel lived in. Like Traverse Town, I’d put a restaurant in the second district near the clock tower.
Encanto could work by having the Casita as a mini-hub and the rooms of family members as mini levels. As we only see Isabela’s and Bruno’s rooms in the film (and the latter when in disrepair), that’s scope to create new yet distinctive and self-contained locations based on the themes of the powers each person has. Camilo’s room could have different configurations to reflect his shape shifting power, or Pepa’s having shifting internal weather that could provide some gameplay functions like you can’t access everywhere with just one weather setting (something similar to the way the Sunleth Waterscape in Final Fantasy XIII lets you toggle between sun and rain at specific points to decide what monsters your face). If the Casita world is early on, Bruno’s room can hold predictions for later in the game that become clearer as more context is unveiled (a reason to return to the world and room as the wider plot develops), integrating his clairvoyance with the overall plot.
The Casita could be like KH2 Atlantica in that it was different parts of the story gated to in-game developments like what magic you earn, leveling up the Drive Gauge to a specific level or what forms you unlocked. Have a new room accessible with each goal, and it breaks up the plot to show development and change, and while you’re there check Bruno’s room for new info (which can hint at plot developments or collectible locations, like he’s seen you at specific locations where chests are). You don’t play the whole world at once until the final gate is unlocked.
Yeah, definitely agree with pat’s take here. Areas can very much be TOO open and feel empty the same way areas can also feel too small and cramped. I do like that they tried to have a variety of worlds in KH3, but SanFran definitely falls into the “empty open world” trap. On the other end monstropolis and arendelle both feel a too closed off. I probably wouldn’t mind it being done for monstropolis if it wasn’t also done twice as bad in arendelle. Toy box, Olympus, The Caribbean, and the kingdom of covid all do a pretty good job of having areas be distinct from one another, with a good variety between open spaces and linear paths.
I’m usually not partial to cities, but I’m excited for Quadradum. Maybe it’s because I’m completely sold on Yazora, but I really hope Quadradum is close to KH2 twilight town. I want puzzles in Quadradum with the build mechanic, ways to interact with KH original characters like Riku and the gang. Otherwise, I do agree that a variety of world types is key. But, I think KH has been pretty consistent with trying to make unique experiences within worlds. From a single coliseum, to the underworld, to the sprawling mountain and a city, KH has shown not wanting to show the same type of world (aesthetic) twice. Same was true from Halloween town to Christmas town. I don’t think another water world is likely, but another open world type of world in KH4 definitely is at least once. Otherwise hard agree with your ponts, now rank worlds based on how much Sora would enjoy them!!
7 years feels so crazy 😭 I got the game right around release
star wars can absolutely work as open “zone” rather than open world. exhibit a is knights of the old republic games. those games surprisingly work very closely to how kh works!
As a non-fan of open worlds, I do think Kh should have big areas with stuff to do, but not just one enourmously empty area with nothing to do, but that is impressive because look how big we managed to make it
I actually really like the way that KH3 is structured in terms of world size. Most of them are railroaded to a high degree, but then you have the Caribbean and San Fransokyo essentially being open world inside a larger container. Both of those worlds ranked among my top five in your poll, and for good reason. Night time cities are some of my favorite environments, and the Caribbean has exploration both wide and (literally) deep. None of it is mandatory, but it’s something that I love to do regardless. So absolutely you can make Quadratum an open world, but because it’s a main hub, maybe open it up in chunks? Or make areas that you’re not supposed to be at yet have super high level enemies? I want an open world format, but I’d be disappointed if KH4 blew its load all at once.
One thing I think could've made San Fransokyo stand out a bit more with uniqueness is adding some more San Fransisco elements such as hills. It definitely feels like Tokyo but as a gremlin from the bay area it doesn't really feel like San Francisco. It's something the movie did well in showing with say the trams, the overall verticality of hills such as during the chase of Baymax and later the escape of the masked man. Also(not necessarily a SF exclusive) having a port with some explorable water would've been nice. Oh and being able to climb the Golden Gate Bridge(Japan) would have been cool
My issues with San Fransokyo & The Caribbean in Kingdom Hearts 3 can be sum up to 4 words.
San Fransokyo: More World Design, Less Story. The Caribbean: More Story, Less World Design.
San Fransokyo should’ve easily been the biggest Disney World in the game… but because there aren’t a lot of exploration, less vehicles, and 0 NPCs walking through the city… it just feels small, when it should feel big, because it’s a city world. You could’ve explored secret labs, werehouses, or even places to do minigames, and hunt down optional heartlesses & boss fights.
And the Caribbean didn’t need to adapt At Worlds End. It should’ve adapted Dead Men’s Chest, since having the Kingdom Hearts elements + SDG hanging out throughout the events of the 2nd Pirates of the Caribbean movie, actually could’ve worked. Plus, Dead Men’s Chest had Port Royal, while At World’s End doesn’t have Port Royal… so there could’ve been an easier way to have SDG visit Port Royal, then just going there in the middle of the third movie’s events.
I think the Caribbean is the far better world, but San Fransokyo is a world I tend to just go to and vibe. It's just a very pretty and relaxing worlds to just wander.
I think KH4 should take the Sonic Frontiers approach. Not open world, but open zone: not necessarily a fully interconnected world, but large playable spaces filled with engaging fights, maybe some puzzles, and fun challenges that are fun to navigate towards. Objectives are abundant, but the game will simply give you a marker and a “information” bar to head to the objective, not stopping you from exploring but encouraging you to continue the story. Cap it all off with a spectacular boss, and that sounds like a fun experience.
Once The Caribbean opens up, it hits the structure that worked in Breath of the Wild. You can go do the final fight at any time. But until then, you build up power by freely exploring the open map.
I also liked travelling to the Fairy Tale Kingdom in KH3. The Tangled world is a linear path outside the town, which works because you're on a journey to a specific location.
My top pick for KH4 is Encanto, which would have to be handled with different areas coming out from a central hub. It would be cool if they can do it without loading screens. But a room-based system is pretty integral to that world.
KH needs to take a few pages out of Yakuza’s book. The cities in that are incredibly detailed but small scale, and all the activities are tightly packed in.
Yakuza also has really fun minigames like literal arcades where you can go and play other SEGA games. Imagine if Quadratum had an arcade that let you play old SNES Disney games or something.
I visited the Mexico pavilion at Epcot about a month ago and it’s themed after the Land of the Dead from the Coco film and looks incredible. The aesthetic of it really sold me on it potentially being included in KH4, even though I’ve never even seen the movie.
5:46 PEAK EDITING. Feel sorry for audio only listeners.
Assassin's Creed mentioned!!
Since you brought up Star Wars, one of the ways I always thought the franchise could be best implemented since way back in 2012 was to utilize a location like the Death Star (or if they go with the new trilogy, Starkiller base) and have one or two smaller planetoids hold other key locations like the Rebel Base or Tatooine, or even have them as a "binary world" (in reference to the Binary Sunset theme from John Williams) where one is the superweapon, and the other is a multi-biome world
If you have Sora destroy the Death Star, then move any chests not obtained on the Death Star to another location like they did with Oogie's Manor.
If KH4 has LESS worlds than KH3 I'll actually cry.
I am 200% on board with returning to jumping on mushrooms to traverse the environment. I miss when High Jump and Glide were actually relevant to progression and exploration.
While KH2 is my fav of the series, my biggest complaint with it was how small some of the worlds felt. I liked the bigger worlds in 3 but I agree some of the worlds felt like they had a lot of empty in them. I like the idea of worlds with varying levels of space depending on the premise
“happy 7 years btw…” Pat…😭 i can feel my bones aching…..😭
So funnily enough, on my very first playthrough of KH3, the Caribbean was actually my LEAST favorite world for one simple reason: I made the horrible mistake of brute-forcing the Shipwreck Cove battle as soon as I got the ship and explored everything afterwards. On my second playthrough, I explored properly, and it EXPONENTIALLY shot up in my rankings because of it. I definitely agree with all your points on San Fransokyo, though, it’s a great concept, but I think there’s just not enough to do to warrant the size of the world.
VERY interested to see how they do Quadratum, considering it’s a 1:1 recreation of a real-life location, something that the series hasn’t really done yet outside of Big Ben (and even then, it’s just the clock tower, not much TO explore). And Shibuya ain’t exactly a small city, so I’m very curious on how MUCH of it they’re going to adapt in Quadratum. As someone who had the privilege of visiting Shibuya last year, I can say that there’s definitely a lot of potential in creating engaging environments and set-pieces, it’s a very complex city with a lot of verticality as well as a ton of nooks and crannies. Very intrigued to see what they’re gonna do.
I couldn't agree more with the open world fatigue. I prefer the more linear/contained style. Especially if it means that we get more effort/detail put into it. A big world could be nice if it's enjoyable to maneuver and doesn't feel overwhelming. The majority of the time, it just feels like the openness is there to just take extra time to get from point A to point B to pad down playtime to make it worth the costly price tag. Sure, it might have taken me 100 hours to "beat said game", but most of it was just spent randomly maneuvering an area to find the right NPCs that just so happen to not have an icon marker that I got lost trying to locate. Wouldn't be a bad idea to have some things peppered about, but if it's easily missable, then you're just playing a walking simulator until you reach your next destination. Imo, I would rather stroll down a hallway with a bunch of NPCs to talk to to get more exposition on the world/events, than to have to traverse across a large field/desert to potentially find a random collectable/interaction. Very much an instance of quality over quantity
Worth noting that San Fransokyo was also the last world selected for the game, and after they thought they had their final lineup. It's fairly evident that the devs most likely put the world furthest on the backburner and had to string together things rather last minute compared to the rest of the worlds.
Even with it being my least favorite KH3 world for all of the reasons in the vid, I am optimistic that with the learned experience, feedback, and now substantially more time, the devs can strike a balance between openness and attention-to-detail with interactivity in Quadratum; like a KH1 Traverse Town/Hollow Bastion.
San Fransokyo is just a flowmotion playground before the final battle & Caribbean is the true “open worldy” map imo
In terms of level design, I've always preferred the smaller, more contained maps. My perhaps favorite franchise of all time is Yakuza, and a big reason for that is the familiarity of all its cities. All of the Yakuza locations are not too big, not too small, easy to navigate, and most importantly, easy to memorize; I never needed a minimap to get around after the first few hours, because each district has a distinctive aesthetic and the streets are easily navigable. They also create a great sense of scale while you're traversing them, whether it's being surrounded by the tall skyscrapers in Kamurocho, browsing the many restaurants on Sotenbori Street, or wandering through the back alleys of Onomichi. (It helps that Yakuza has great minigames - karaoke, my beloved - and no collectibles in most of the games.)
That said, when it comes to Kingdom Hearts, I find myself torn, because the series has played around with level and environmental design philosophies in each of the six games that I've played (I can't comment on Days and Re:Coded and I won't comment on UX as that's just a side scroller with backgrounds). Each does something well, but two games are superior and I really don't know which is best.
I think it's been well established that KH2 has the worst level design in the franchise, even below Re:COM, which at least has varying room types depending on the cards used to access them; still, I would like to at least give an honorable mention to Twilight Town, my personal favorite world in the series and the best level design in the game, and TWTNW (City and Castle), which gave me that same sense of scale and mystery as Hollow Bastion on a first playthrough. I also seem to be one of the only people that actually likes the flavor text from the green triangle interactables, especially the minor details on the items in the Usual Spot between Roxas' and Sora's visits.
DDD attempts to recapture the environmental design that kept players engaged in KH1, with lots of verticality, better chest placement than KH2, and moderate environmental interactivity (mostly on Riku's side). But as has been said many times on this and other channels, Flowmotion completely invalidates most if not all of these improvements and makes each world feel as bland as KH2's (albeit with more player effort required); also, I fucking hate The Grid both for recycling Tron unnecessarily, and for those ground rails that kept fucking me up during the Commantis fight (this has very little to do with world design, but I just really hate The Grid). BBS does a much better job with this same design philosophy by, well, not having any mechanics like Flowmotion, but also integrating the level design into the gameplay, whether it's the intentional use of vertical motion in Aqua's Neverland or chest placement that requires backtracking with new movement abilities or a creative use of specific commands (which I believe was always the developers' intent).
However, there are two games that have the best level and environmental design, and I honestly can't decide which is best.
In KH1, everything feels intentional, from the swinging vines in Deep Jungle, to the bizarre room in Wonderland, to the intentionally confusing (but no less infuriating on a first or second playthrough) Monstro. Environmental interaction was at its peak, and the worlds have a sense scale that makes you feel small and the world feel big, aided by having the camera on a much tighter FOV - which, coincidentally, was a take on the hot takes bracket video that I didn't know was a hot take; I always lower the FOV as low as I am comfortable in every game for a more intimate perspective, and it really bugs me that I can't do that in KH2 and 3, but I guess I'm in the minority.
In KH3, that sense of scale is back, despite the wider FOV, with open spaces unmarred by loading screens in between most "rooms." It also has much better mobility, with a pared down Flowmotion and air-step that enhance exploration but don't invalidate the level design. Best of all, it *finally* has populated areas that make the world feel alive rather than waiting rooms for Heartless and Nobodies to spawn. Once I arrived in Twilight Town, I spent a half hour just walking around, taking in the sights and listening to all of the ambient dialogue (where is Seifer? He's waiting in the Sandlot for me to kick his ass at Struggle, but I'm locked in Tram Commons and not allowed to leave... I'm not bitter). In essence, KH3's world design feels like KH1's design philosophy in a modern engine that allows them to do everything they probably wanted to do back in 2002.
Almost.
Along with the more open world design, KH3 also loses its sense of intentionality. Likely due to the older engine's limitations, the devs were much more careful about how they used their limited physical and virtual spaces. The Bizarre Room is so unique not only because they wanted it to feel as strange and wonderous as its titular world, but because they HAD to design it that way to fit everything in. Those limitations are gone, now, but as a consequence, so is that level of forced creativity. One notable exception is - and I know I'm going to catch flak for this, but it's true - Arendelle; despite the constant back and forth and general sameyness of a "generic snowy environment," each area feels visually distinct and intentionally designed. (Every world feels hand crafted with a discrete attention to detail, but Arendelle stands out to me as it is a more contained environment that sets each area apart from the last with intentional level design.)
But while a lack of intentionality may be a consequence of modern engines removing limitations that once forced developers to get creative, what is also lacking is equally consequential but can't be blamed on modern engines: environmental interactability. Each world is visually stunning - with the exception of Monstropolis, but there's really not much they could've done with that world, so I give it a pass for SDG's monster forms and yeetus Vanitus - but that novelty quickly wears off when there are no buttons to push, no doors requiring magic, and no secret areas to discover. (I have admittedly done very little exploring in KH3, so I may be wrong about some or all of that - please feel free to correct me if I am - but none of it was obvious to me as I traversed the worlds on my first story-centric playthrough aside from the many grottos and islands in the Caribbean, most of which I ignored this time around.) I really miss the older games that rewarded curiosity by placing a puzzle in the player's path with with a hint which may or may not be immediately obvious, and whose outcome may not always be apparent.
(In hindsight, I guess I did decide which is best.)
In short (but not really), I am fine with KH3's level design philosophy (more like resigned to, but potato potahto). Most of the maps' size, scale, and scope gave me the same sense of a contained, easily navigable area that I get from Yakuza, with the exception of the Caribbean, which gave me more of an Assassin's Creed 4 vibe (which also relies heavily on player exploration and curiosity on a smallish - by AC standards - contained map). San Fransokyo is a special case; I love what they did with it aesthetically, but I feel like it was too big and confusing for the role it played in the world's story (and when compared to the scope and level design of other worlds). As long as the individual map scale stays relatively the size of KH3's worlds, I am willing to forego my desire for intentional level design, given that it is a consequence of game engine capabilities evolving, but I really want them to go back to involving the player with the environment through interactivity and puzzles. The latter is not a consequence of game design evolution but, I feel, a growing complacency among the playerbase with a mind toward accessibility, and/or an increasing lack of trust from the developers in their potential players' curiosity (to be clear, I'm speaking about AAA game design in general here, not just about KH). All that needs to change in this respect is a paradigm shift where players go back to expecting more from their games and developers go back to respecting and trusting in their playerbase's intelligence. Which is, admittedly, a tall order, but one I choose to place hope in rather than resign myself to ever increasingly simple world design.
Also, as an aside, I don't think a KH Star Wars is doomed to open worlditis. Jedi Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor prove that these worlds function perfectly well as smaller, self-contained Metroidvania style maps; yes, there is space travel (loading screens) in between worlds, and yes, KH isn't really known for a Metroidvania level design, but the point is that it doesn't have to be one big sprawling Endor or Tatooine world.
Coco world fits so well for KH4, I feel like the game would actually suffer if it's not there
As someone who Hiro is one of my top 5 Disney Characters this video was rough. Not cause I disagree but because I know he's so right about how Hiro is in KH3.
I’m cool with one or two open worlds, but not a majority of the game being them. I think an important part of what makes the Caribbean work is the concept of the ship itself. You already spend an entire game walking around so to have a big open world where you… do more walking! Except now it’s more empty and you can walk to the left! Is boring. The ship being a completely different movement mechanic not only helps it stand out, but prevents it from getting stale too fast since you haven’t been doing that for 20 hours already.
If they do an open world I think it needs something like that. Ship, a robot, some giant creatures you ride on, etc.
Aww, I wanted to see you rank the worlds by how much Sora enjoyed them, why'd you have to do us like that XD
Totally agree that moving through the worlds needs to be difficult again. Somehow across two years and three ability resets Sora’s gone from being unable to swim on top of a less than fully submerged hippopotamus to being able to run up walls and warp across vast distances without issues, yet exploration felt better and was paced more appropriately before being able to go just about anywhere from the start.
I recently beat KH3 (without Re-Mind), and I gotta agree with what you said towards the end: a mile wide and an inch deep. The worlds were huge, and pretty, too! But also... a slog to get through if you weren't following the critical path to the credits.
And I was one of the goofballs who used a guide to grab all the chests and emblems. Not my smartest play...
I did enjoy my time when I wasn't being a completionist. 😅
0:39 ugh I HATE driving dreams! I always crash as soon as I realize I'm dreaming.
I have the same thing, but it's like the highway I'm on becomes one giant speedway like the Speed Racer movie, stage hazards and all.
I'm always in the passenger seat with no driver
Sometimes the car is on fire
@forestcult7780ruclips.net/video/MjAMHH3vysA/video.htmlsi=FAD1Y4At1doGpk9w
I do think it's likely that KH4 will still feature both style of worlds, like say if we get Inside Out or Ralph for real this time, it will be more concise and linear, whereas that possible Star robot foot in the forest Wars world will probably be a massive showcase of a open world take on KH worlds.
I actually think I would like to see _more_ open areas, but not on the level of The Caribbean. The Caribbean is fun, but it shouldn't be the only kind of world (and the dev cycles for these games already take forever). I think something closer to Mario Odyssey would be the way to go: a bunch of small areas that you can explore at your leisure, alongside a smattering of more curated areas that don't have as much exploration.
Basically, have a handful of exploratory levels that range from big explorable worlds, to worlds where you jump between several locations. Then have a collection of just semi-linear "get to the end of the story" levels that can include some more "set piece" moments/one-off gameplay mechanics.