#honestly i'm as actively against nier and parasite eve characters showing up as i am star wars and marvel

[bluerosesburnblue]

I feel like I already know the answer to this, probably (LOL), but if you could add any other Square Enix series to Kingdom Hearts, what would it be and why? Bravely Default, Dragon Quest, NieR, The Bouncer, Parasite Eve, Forspoken, the Mana series, Xenoblade Chronicles, Valkyrie Profile, Fullmetal Alchemist, Soul Eater? Something else I didn't list here? (You can cheat and choose more than one, if you want:))

Actually, I don't know if I would add any other series. Don't get me wrong, I love the characters from a lot of these, but for me it's a question of how well they could fit into KH without losing the things about them that make them unique, you know?

I love the cast of NieR and NieR: Automata, but those games are SO dark, and a lot of the appeal of those games is the uniquely bleak and hopeless atmosphere, and I can't see them being added to KH without scrubbing away any of the traits that made people like them in the first place. Parasite Eve, too, falls into this category. I mean, The 3rd Birthday kinda already proved why wackier JRPG plots don't work with that cast, they're far too grounded for it. At best you could hope for some of them as background NPCs in an Enchanted NYC, but they'd basically have to be the equivalent of Setzer's KH2 appearance and at that point it just feels kinda cheap

Characters from The Bouncer could make decent cameo appearances in a KH-exclusive world like Twilight Town, since that game is obscure enough that I doubt anyone would get super offended if they were represented weirdly or relegated to just a cameo. But that would also run into the same issue as the Parasite Eve example, where the cameo doesn't really do much other than go "oooooh, look, CHARACTER" (which is my main issue with the use of some of the FF characters in KH already). Alas, this one will probably only ever be referenced as Pence's Dog Street shirt and that's probably for the best given how weird that game is

And then there's just a ton of games that I don't know enough about to say. Forspoken, Octopath Traveler, and Triangle Strategy all come to mind

If they had to bring other properties in, then Bravely Default would work the best for me, at least of the properties you listed that are actually Square Enix owned-and-produced and not just Square Enix published and/or affiliated. Not only is Bravely Default meant to evoke classic Final Fantasy, so it's not too far off from what's already in the game, but the characters already have a lot of "modernisms" in their speech and behaviors that would make them very adaptable to a lot of different worlds in KH and the tone of the games overall. Not to mention that the classical fantasy setting of the games could be pretty reminiscent of some of the more fantasy-focused Disney films, allowing them to blend together. I'm imagining, like... an Edea cameo in Arendelle, not unlike Auron in Olympus. That all being said, I've never played Bravely Default II, so I can't say how well that one would hold up. I'm only thinking of Bravely Default and Bravely Second's casts

And while I do like Xenoblade Chronicles, I would never call them Square Enix series. That's not even close to accurate. Those games are produced by Monolith Soft, and while the company was founded by an ex-Square game director and a lot of the initial employees there were ex-Square employees who brought a lot of those same sensibilities over, the company itself really has nothing to do with them. Would I like it if Nomura's guest designed characters from Xenoblade 2 showed up? Sure, I think having Jin and Lauriam interact could be funny. Or Mikhail and Demyx. But it's not going to happen, because those aren't Square Enix characters. Sora's just gonna have to hang out with Shulk, Pyra, and Mythra in Super Smash Bros. and leave it at that