History Narm / KingdomHearts

[[folder:General]]
* The entire premise of the ''Kingdom Hearts'' series can be either this or NarmCharm to newcomers -- specifically, the MoodWhiplash created by the sight of spiky-haired anime characters fighting demons and having amazing, visually orgasmic anime battles with [[ImpossiblyCoolWeapon impossibly cool anime weapons]] (complete with {{Single Stroke Battle}}s, InstantRunes, {{Magic Missile Storm}}s, flashy {{Criss Cross Attack}}s, etc.), juxtaposed with the whimsical cartoonishness of Disney characters and settings.
* Mickey Mouse is easily one of the biggest sources of unintentional comedy. They tried so hard to portray him as a [[TookALevelInBadass badass]] in such an overly serious way, giving him dramatic lines like ''"[[{{Revenge}} They'll pay for this]]"'' [[note]] (said with a DeathGlare and in response to Goofy's DisneyDeath, which is rich Narm in itself) [[/note]] and having him be one of the most powerful characters in the setting. The problem is his character just ''cannot'' work this way. It clashes so badly with his canon Disney personality it's nigh impossible to take any of it seriously.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_6mpKet-KI This scene]] where he says "Say fellas, did somebody mention the Door to Darkness?" and then just stands there menacingly wearing ''[[WTHCostumingDepartment that outfit]]'' is infamous.
* A lot of the dialogue that Goofy and Donald deliver unfortunately ends up coming across as this due to the way their voices sound. You wouldn't expect Donald and Goofy's voices of all things to be added for dramatic tension.
* Pretty much any time a serious character says Goofy's name out loud, or when anyone says his name out loud in a serious scene.
* It seems there is a pattern that if the character doesn't have a high quality facial model even if the situation needs it, the scene is ruined. Well, in that case, Donald and Goofy's HQ facial models are underused so much in the first game, that any time they talk, they look so blank. [[http://youtu.be/_EE7HREV00w?t=6m35s This scene (Video link skips to 6:35)]] from the original ''Kingdom Hearts'' is one of the worst examples. It seems like they were trying to be sad, [[spoiler:since they're leaving Sora because Riku has the Keyblade,]] but couldn't the creators at least make their models frown? It probably made much more sense in a lot of scenes back when the games were only on sub-HD resolutions since it wouldn't have been nearly as noticeable, but in the HD ports it looks especially jarring, and kind of where the pre-HD games haven't aged very well.
** Another major source of narm is that these static faces default to having a huge grin, especially notable with Disney characters like Sora and Simba. The Lion King characters are especially bad in this regard, with huge permanently frozen face splitting grins. There's no technical excuse for ''this one''. However, the character that has the most notable problem with this is Mickey, whose facial model, regardless of his mood or what he's doing, is ''always'' plastered with a shit-eating grin, which makes nearly ''every scene'' he's in instantly kill the mood or, at the least, makes him harder to take seriously at all.
* [[RainbowPimpGear Anytime you enter a serious cutscene wielding a ridiculous Keyblade]]. You can lock Keyblades with Roxas, who has one of the coolest-looking Keyblades around, with a freaking candy cane.
** ''Dream Drop Distance'' offers plenty of slick-looking Keyblades... if you care to unlock them. Otherwise, have fun entering the final scenes waving [[https://www.khwiki.com/images/c/cd/Knockout_Punch_KH3D.png this.]]
* The series is very averse to having {{Non Player Character}}s around, usually only having a half-dozen or so per world and they're always named characters important to the story. This can lead to positively ridiculous scenarios when there aren't crowds of people when there should be, such as the ball of ''Cinderella'' or the Festival of Fools for ''The Hunchback of Notre Dame'' -- it's just the four or five plot important characters in an empty room/field. [[https://i.imgur.com/UOyQs2w.png This screenshot about sums it up.]] Sometimes the game attempts to HandWave this by explaining the absence of others (they fled from the Heartless or other villains, they were turned into Heartless, they're all scared and staying inside, etc.), but more often it doesn't bother. Thankfully ''III'' finally averted this by populating the worlds with extras. ''Dark Road'' would further attempt to justify this by explaining that the restoration process the worlds had to go through after being destroyed in the Keyblade War restores the people last, and since time flows differently in each world, some of them haven't been completely restored yet. [[note]]Though really, the limited number of characters in any given scene is entirely for performance reasons. Before the HD era of gaming it was rare for games to have large crowds of people, but aside from increases in performance, rendering techniques like instancing have largely made crowds of [=NPCs=] a relatively solved problem performance-wise, especially on Unreal Engine 4, which ''III'' uses.[[/note]]
* The awkward way people say the Trio's names, it's always in a weird, stilted tone, as though they are always saying the names for the first time "Sora... Donald... Goofy" especially when characters have known them for a long time, where "guys" or even "my friends" would work.
* The HandWave that Donald casts magic off-screen to make sure the trio fit in with certain worlds and don't disturb their logic, when no one seems to find a problem with a talking dog man and duck accompanying a young boy wielding an oversized key, never mind openly casting magic and potentially blowing up entire areas without consequence. It makes even less sense when Donald apparently turns them into completely random animals (like a ''turtle'' in Goofy's case) or gets them decked in pirate garb before they're even pirating, and in multiple cases he doesn't even realize the forms he turned everyone into before they find out!
** A fan translated excerpt from the manga that hit MemeticMutation (before official translations really released) takes Donald's explanation of keeping world order to an absurd degree by having a whole exposition that sounds about as awkwardly poetic and complex as usual for ''Kingdom Hearts''. Except it's ''Donald'' explaining this, and when you read it in his voice one can't help but keel over from realizing that it would be ''incomprehensible gibberish'' from him. The official version manages to avert it by being much more blunt and to the point, which sounds more in-character for Donald.
-->'''Fan Translation:''' Every world is defined by its particular boundaries, within which some understanding of reality emerges as truth. Two truths cannot coexist, and so from the introduction of foreign bodies is conflict and chaos spawned. ''That's'' why we limit our involvement in local affairs.
-->'''Official Translation:''' Every person should keep living in their own world. It'll just cause confusion. That's why we have to keep it a secret.
* Dark Riku would look ''way'' more intimidating... if his [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/kingdomhearts/images/7/75/Dark_Riku_%28Dark_Mode%29_KHIII.png/revision/latest?cb=20200705044701 outfit]] didn't look like he had a hula skirt.
[[/folder]]

* At the end of the second [[WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas Halloween Town]] visit, Sora watches as Jack and Sally dance together, and he briefly imagines them as himself and Kairi. The problem is because Sora has not seen Kairi since the end of the first game, he imagines her much younger and shorter looking self from that game. The result is a scene that looks less like a romantic waltz between two teenage sweethearts, and more like a doting big brother dancing with his little sister.

* At the end of the second [[WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas Halloween Town]] visit, Sora watches as Jack and Sally dance together, and he briefly imagines them as himself as Kairi. The problem is because Sora has not seen Kairi since the end of the first game, he imagines her much younger and shorter looking self from that game. The result is a scene that looks less like a romantic waltz between two teenage sweethearts, and more like a doting big brother dancing with his little sister.

** Another major source of narm is that these static faces default to having a huge grin, especially notable with Disney characters like Sora and Simba. The Lion King characters are especially bad in this regard, with huge permanently frozen face splitting grins. There's no technical excuse for ''this one''. However, the character that has the most notable problem with this is Mickey, whose facial model, regardless of his mood or what he's doing, is ''always'' plastered with a shit-eating grin, which makes nearly ''every scene'' he's in nearly instantly kill the mood or, at the least, makes him harder to take seriously at all.

** Another major source of narm is that these static faces default to having a huge grin, especially notable with Disney characters like Sora and Simba. The Lion King characters are especially bad in this regard, with huge permanently frozen face splitting grins. There's no technical excuse for ''this one''.

---> "It's not the sum of our parts. It's the [[IncrediblyLamePun sum of our hearts."]]

* In the English version, Creator/RutgerHauer takes a ColdHam approach to voicing Master Xehanort in contrast to the LargeHam performances of Creator/LeonardNimoy, Creator/ChristopherLloyd, or even the [[Creator/ChikaoOhtsuka Japanese]] [[Creator/AkioOhtsuka voices]]. Then comes the FinalBoss battle, and it's almost understandable why he isn't as hammy as the others when he has to yell, "COME, KINGDOM HEARTS!" in a high pitched and almost squeaky voice, making Xehanort sound far from intimidating.

** There is a reenactment of a scene from ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'' [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome where Shan Yu runs down the mountain alongside his soldiers on horseback]]. This time, there are no horses and instead of human soldiers, he runs alongside the Heartless. But of all the Heartless to choose from, they chose ''[[http://www.khwiki.net/images/b/bb/Rapid_Thruster_KHII.png Rapid Thrusters]]'' and no others. Seeing Shan Yu fiercely running down the mountain with these guys behind him is just underwhelming in comparison.
** Speaking of ''Pirates of the Caribbean'', the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccbd9kYsCSU original PS2 remix of "He's a Pirate"]] counts. It sounds ''very'' badly synthesized and way too upbeat for the world you're in. In a world that's all about fighting pirate zombies and sailing dangerous waters, a remix like this is simply unfitting. Thankfully, the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjLtEqY8jKw 2.5 remix]] sounds a lot closer to the original.

* Due to GameplayStorySegregation, we have a scene where Kairi and Riku [[spoiler: are both wielding Keyblades and having trouble...against ''[[CutsceneIncompetence common Shadow Heartless]]''. Kairi swings at a Shadow and misses badly, while Riku swings twice only to have the Shadow dodge by ''jumping over his head'' BOTH TIMES.]]

** Nowhere is this worse than ''Kingdom Hearts III.'' The game has a lot of Disney-themed Keyblades and not one of them looks remotely more threatening than a toy from a [=McDonald=]'s Happy Meal. In the base game, there were only three or four Keyblades (Kingdom Key, Ultima, Starlight and whatever preorder Keyblade you might've had) that ''didn't'' suffer from this, which was arguably one of the causes of ComplacentGamingSyndrome. It's to the point where the Keyblades added in the Re:Mind update, Oathkeeper and Oblivion, were added partially to avert this.

* At the end of the second [[WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas Halloween Town]] visit, Sora watches as Jack and Sally dance together, and he briefly imagines them as himself as Kairi. The problem is because Sora has not seen Kairi since the end of the first game, he imagines her much younger and shorter looking self from that game. The result is a scene that looks less like a romantic waltz between two teenage sweethearts, and more like a big brother dancing with his baby sister.

* At the end of the second [[WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas Halloween Town]] visit, Sora watches as Jack and Sally dance together, and he briefly images them as himself as Kairi, but because Sora has not seen Kairi since the end of the first game, he imagines her much younger and shorter looking self from that game. The result is a scene that looks less like a romantic waltz between two teenage sweethearts, and more like a big brother dancing with his little sister.

** The world itself also suffers the same problem Port Royal did in ''II'', except even worse due to the ArtEvolution; a super underdetailed and cartoony Donald and Goofy next to Davy Jones is hysterically out of place. Sora himself has a detailed look and pirate garb this time around, but he's still an anime-faced young {{Bishonen}} next to uncanny likenesses ripped almost straight from the film compared to the compromises before.

** ''Dream Drop Distance'' offers plenty of slick-looking Keyblades...if you care to unlock them. Otherwise, have fun entering the final scenes waving [[https://www.khwiki.com/images/c/cd/Knockout_Punch_KH3D.png this.]]
** Nowhere is this worse than ''Kingdom Hearts III.'' The game has a lot of Disney-themed Keyblades and not one of them looks remotely more threatening than a toy from a [=McDonald=]'s Happy Meal. In the base game, there were only three or four Keyblades(Kingdom Key, Ultima, Starlight and whatever preorder Keyblade you might've had) that ''didn't'' suffer from this, which was arguably one of the causes of ComplacentGamingSyndrome. It's to the point where the Keyblades added in the Re:Mind update, Oathkeeper and Oblivion, were added partially to avert this.

* While use of TotallyRadical language is a rich, deep well of Narm in itself, most fans agree that [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY30kR3bQ4U this]] is the worst/[[NarmCharm best]].

** The manga takes Donald's explanation of keeping world order to an absurd degree by having a whole exposition that sounds about as awkwardly poetic and complex as usual for ''Kingdom Hearts''. Except it's ''Donald'' explaining this, and when you read it in his voice one can't help but keel over from realizing that it would be ''incomprehensible gibberish'' from him, never mind a cartoon character trying to say it.
-->'''Donald:''' Every world is defined by its particular boundaries, within which some understanding of reality emerges as truth. Two truths cannot coexist, and so from the introduction of foreign bodies is conflict and chaos spawned. ''That's'' why we limit our involvement in local affairs.

* The HandWave that Donald casts magic off-screen to make sure the trio fit in with certain worlds and don't disturb their logic, when no one seems to find a problem with a talking dog man and duck accompanying a young boy wielding a magical key. It makes even less sense when Donald apparently turns them into completely random animals (like a ''turtle'' in Goofy's case) or gets them decked in pirate garb before they're even pirating.

** Nowhere is this worse than ''Kingdom Hearts III.'' The game has a lot of Disney-themed Keyblades and not one of them looks remotely more threatening than a toy from a McDonald's Happy Meal. In the base game, there were only three or four Keyblades(Kingdom Key, Ultima, Starlight and whatever preorder Keyblade you might've had) that ''didn't'' suffer from this, which was arguably one of the causes of ComplacentGamingSyndrome. It's to the point where the Keyblades added in the Re:Mind update, Oathkeeper and Oblivion, were added partially to avert this.

* No one seems to cheer after Xehanort’s defeat.

* Donald Duck squawking, "Sora, it's SEFFIROFF!" In much the opposite way of a threatening villain like Maleficent saying Oogie Boogie's name, it's just as hilarious to hear Sephiroth's name coming out of Donald's beak.

* So much of [[WesternAnimation/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame La Cité des Cloches]], due to how watered down the plot is (the problem is persistent throughout several worlds in the series, but this is the most glaring example). The absence of any NPC's is especially problematic, considering we have no guards, citizens, or gypsies to fill out the areas.

* The climax of [[Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanAtWorldsEnd Port Royal]] has Admiral Beckett finally get his just desserts and go down with his ship in a violent blaze as according to the movie. The problem is that he has only shown up for a grand total of one scene before this and, much like the Arendelle problem above, Sora lacks basically ''all'' of the film context besides "Davy Jones and Beckett are bad". The result? [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality Sora and company cheering happily as they indirectly murder a fleet, because they have fun being pirates.]]

* Goofy's "death" scene in the 1000 Heartless battle. The game plays this very seriously, with Mickey going on about how they'll pay for this...only for the next cutscene after to show Goofy alive and well, because the boulder just knocked him out and nobody bothered checking for a pulse or any sign that he was alive or dead. It's just a very strange scene whose intention feels confusing, especially considering that many people wouldn't have bought Goofy dying in the first place given his status as your party member and an important Disney character.