The decision to drop the FF characters was such a huge mistake

I adore the Kingdom Hearts series, but I couldn't even get through a few worlds in KHIII due to silly and younger tone of all the cutscenes. I get that at it's heart it is a kids game or at least was. But their core audience has grown up.

I was so excited when it came out, only to be extremely turned off with the lack of FF characters and the over the top childish tone.

I'd say the intervening... what was it... 15 year?... gap is what killed my love for the game series. I was in middle school when I played the first one, and I never even bothered with KH3. The story was painfully overwrought by the end of KH2, and I knew that tacking on another sequel wasn't going to fix it. Nomura is going to Nomura.

It's a shame because the series was one of my favorites back in the day. At least the soundtrack will always be good.

Honestly, KH3 and FF15 were major disappointments for me. Even tho Nomura stepped away from 15 and the story, I still blame Nomura for those dumpster fires.

The main point of disgust with KH3 was thinking I was halfway done with the story and ready for the 2nd visits of each of the game worlds, only to find we were at the fucking end???

Also that games' 1k heartless battle with the that god awful heartless background with the ass framerate? At that point I had given up on the series.

Then, some time later, I like watching youtube while doing the dishes, so I gave the story to Union X and Dark Road a try, and hot damn did they just pull me back in.