Over almost two decades of development, the relatively simple story from the original Kingdom Hearts has seen enough twists and turns to make jumping into the series feel confusing to newcomers. Now, with Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory prepared to recap the series, there is a laundry list of information for players to catch up on as the next phase of the story begins to dive into the Master of Masters saga.
One issue with the way that this new era of Kingdom Hearts is kicking off, however, is that the story of the Master of Masters, the Foretellers, and the new Union Leaders is currently stuck in a browser/mobile game. As far as Union X goes, the game itself isn’t bad by the standards of free-to-play titles, but with how much important priming for the next phase of the series is in the game, it can be difficult and frustrating to wade through the filler.
A common critique of Kingdom Hearts 3 when it released was that the Disney Worlds in this game seemed even more inconsequential than they had in previous titles. This criticism mostly comes from the way that the framing device of the game focuses on Sora trying to regain an ability that he suddenly has access to once he’s finished doing everything else. However, Kingdom Hearts 3 at least attempted to connect the worlds together by having Organization members pop up in each location, something Union X‘s storyline unfortunately lacks.
The basic premise of Kingdom Hearts: Union X holds itself back from the player character’s adventures through Disney-based locations that have any real impact on the overall story. To put the concept in simple terms, players aren’t actually traveling to the worlds that players visit in the regular Kingdom Hearts series as Sora, instead visiting projections pulled from the far future. This means that every Disney world the player visits has little to no bearing on the series overall, which turns a huge amount of the adventuring through familiar locations into filler.
Now, for anyone familiar with the current story of Union X would know, there is one world that actually has a more direct influence on the overall story of the series. This would be the storyline of Maleficent that appears in the Enchanted Dominion world, which after finishing is revealed to have included a non-digital/projected version of the classic Disney villain who had traveled through time after the events of the first game. Getting into the series’ concept of time-travel, for one, is something that has drawn a lot of complaints, as well as Maleficent’s story-arc in Union X has, although it does go a way to explain Organization XIII’s use of the story mechanic.
While this specific subplot does have a much larger effect on Kingdom Hearts as a whole, possibly hinting at the origins of Vanitus, it is easy to miss anything involving Maleficent, as the reveal that she isn’t a projection doesn’t come until after beating her. At the same time, there is also an ongoing storyline that simply goes through the entire story of Wreck It Ralph, intercut with the main plot involving Ephemer and Union X‘s new Union Leaders. There is just so much to keep track of now, and when it takes a few hours to make it through the missions that lead to new cutscenes, it turns what should be the fun and engaging process of keeping up with the story into a chore.
A recent addition to the series, the side-story Kingdom Hearts Dark Road, has released three chapters now, and the first two were very concise story beats setting up for Xehanort to become the Seeker of Darkness. However, the third chapter hit a stride where the story started to run into some of the same familiar issues with filler that the base Union X is currently plagued with. The short adventure through Wonderland is somewhat tied back into the overall story, but the only beats that really have any impact on the series are in the very beginning and very end.
That isn’t to say that there isn’t anything of note to be taken from Dark Road Chapter 3, as it does continue to explore the strength and origins of new Heartless that have begun overrunning worlds. The real issue is that while Chapters 1 and 2 both answered questions with each cutscene, fully animated in Union X‘s chibi style, Chapter 3 is filled with unnecessary conversations with Alice in Wonderland characters that go nowhere. There are revelations at the end pertaining to the nature of worlds, and the passage of time from place to place, explaining away certain plot holes from the main series, but this only comes at the very end.
In the lead-up to Kingdom Hearts 3, Square Enix recognized that the story being explored in Union X was going to have an impact on the future of the series and released Back Cover as a part of 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue. The hour-long movie goes through the events of the original Kingdom Hearts Chi, which covered the story of the Master of Masters, his Foretellers, and the Keyblade War. While Chi was eventually rereleased as Unchained X, which is now Union X, the Back Cover movie is a quick way to bring players up to speed with the important events of the mobile game by quickly recapping Kingdom Hearts‘ origin story.
This is something that Square Enix should definitely consider doing again when preparing for Kingdom Hearts 4, since the important information found in Union X might go ignored by some fans. If a Back Cover 2 is able to recap the events currently happening in Union X, between the new Union Leaders, the Darkness inside Ventus, and multiple characters coming from the past to the present, it can do away with the game’s filler problem. Not everyone has the time to dedicate to a mobile game to wade through a sea of filler for a few tiny islands of lore, but plenty of series fans would be happy to sit through an hour of HD footage, especially if fans finally get a better look at the Keyblade War.
Kingdom Hearts Union X is available now on Android and iOS.
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