Kingdom Heats Re: Melody of Memory

"I won't let him be alone, not for a second longer. I'm going to look for him."

― Kairi

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory is a 2020 action role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows.

It is the fourteenth installment in the Kingdom Hearts series. The story takes place after Kingdom Hearts III Re Mind and features Kairi as the main protagonist as she traverses through new worlds in an effort to find a clue regarding Sora's wherabouts, while she explores the memories she lost after Xehanort cast her to Destiny Islands.

Premise
Kairi, feeling responsible for Sora's fate & driven by her love for him, sets out on a journey to - hopefully - bring him home. She travels various Disney worlds searching for clues to Sora’s whereabouts, growing in strength & skill along the way – eventually, she ends up searching her own heart to recover the memories of what Xehanort did to her and being sent to the Islands.

Her arc would be centered around her ‘uselessness’. She feels as though her training was all for naught. She is in pain because she couldn't keep her promise to Sora, so she sneaks off on her own quest to find him and redeem herself. The overall concept is that memories are ‘forgotten, but not lost’ – you can get flashes of things you might not recognize but are somehow still familiar. After certain worlds, Kairi unlocks a forgotten memory from her past.

The game’s central theme is music and memories. As well as a musical Command Style called Melody’s Chord, the enemies in the game make everything around you sound ‘mute’, your keyblade makes musical crashes when attacks land similar to Symphony of Sorcery in DDD, and when Kairi unlocks a hidden memory, you play a rhythm action section.

Plot Summary
After Sora’s disparrence, Yen Sid has been hard at work trying to seek out possible clues on Sora. In search of Sora's whereabouts, Aqua, Terra and Ventus are in the Realm of Darkness, Riku has been in Radiant Garden trying to decode the data Ansem left in Sora while Roxas and Xion are studied in Twilight Town to see if Sora is anywhere in their hearts. Donald and Goofy are going to past worlds Sora’s visited while Mickey’s traveled to the distant lands of Scala ad Caelum. Everyone is hard at work trying to find Sora, while Kairi has been trusted with nothing.

After feeling like Yen Sid doesn't think she's capable, Kairi sneaks off alone and travels various worlds in her own search of Sora. But as she visits these new worlds, she discover new enemies in the No̷̤͑ise.

Throughout the game and her travels, Kairi unlocks memories and learns things about herself long forgotten.

After the Disney worlds are over, Kairi heads to Radiant Garden, and slowly starts to regain more memories. After meeting up at Merlin’s house, she teams up with Riku and Leon and Yuffie to defeat B̵a̶h̴a̶mu̸t — before passing out.

Kairi awakens on her Station of Awakening, and all of a sudden Apprentice Xehanort appears. He seems to be an illusion from her memories, and it’s clear he’s trying to say something.. but he won’t speak. After you defeat him, she shatters her Station to break the illusion, and falls into the darkness below.

Kairi awakens in a familiar place. The place her and Sora ended up after he brought her back — The Final World. This version, however, is an illusion created from Kairi’s memories.

Kairi must gather the pieces of herself that are scattered around the world. And after recovering these pieces, Kairi is confronted by a manifestation of Master Xehanort created from her heart. Kairi attempts to defeat Xehanort, but she is overpowered by the latter. Before Xehanort can deal the finishing blow, Kairi's connection to Sora allows her to wield the Kingdom Key and harness Sora’s strength; you fight Xehanort (a cool idea I had was to have the battle location constantly changing; switching from the Final World, to Scala ad Caelum to Destiny Islands to Radiant Garden), as he shifts throughout all his forms of Terra-Xehanort, Ansem and Xemnas.

After you defeat Xehanort, Apprentice Xehanort appears before her. Apprentice Xehanort reminds her of the words he had said to her before he had cast her from Radiant Garden as a clue to Sora's whereabouts. “Somewhere on the other side.” With this small clue, Kairi attempts to awaken— But she falls deeper into slumber.

Kairi wakes up in the real Final World. Suddenly, she is confronted by an evil manifestation of Sora. Now what exactly this is, is essentially Kairi’s negative thoughts fusing with her thoughts of Sora that becomes an evil phantom, that wants to keep her from waking up. This would be the final, final boss fight in the game. It would be the Anti-Aqua version of Sora, that has most of his attacks and combos. At the end of the battle, you Press Triangle to Riku!; and he drops from the sky! With his help, the two manage to defeat the evil apparition.

After the battle, Riku explains what’s been happening to Kairi. After Radiant Garden, she passed out and has been sleep for nearly a year. They've been studying her in Ansem's lab, when all of a sudden her body disappeared, and a portal opened up. He rushed in and it led him here. Together, the two end up meeting a Nameless Star. She reveals that she is from Quadratum, a world from "the other side", but that she cannot reclaim her physical form in her homeworld because her heart would be stolen. Upon hearing that Sora is in trouble, the Nameless Star offers her assistance, and Riku uses the power of waking on her to open a portal to Quadratum.

Kairi and Riku enter the portal together.

Worlds

 * Dive to The Heart (Prologue)
 * Mysterious Tower (Tutorial)
 * Destiny Islands
 * Fields of Bravery (The Sword in the Stone)
 * Fated Highlands (Brave)
 * Symphonic Forest (Fantasia)
 * Montunui (Moana)
 * Twilight Town (Mid-Point)
 * Pixie Hollow (Tinker Bell)
 * Wastelands (Epic Mickey)
 * Game Central Station (Wreck-It Ralph)
 * Land of The Dead (Coco)
 * Radiant Garden
 * World of Memories
 * Final World

Growth Path
The player can choose their growth path in the Dive to the Heart. The first set of options are Wisdom, Vitality, and Balance, with the first focusing on MP, the second on HP, and the third focusing on both HP and MP equally.

The second set of options are Guardian, Warrior, and Mystic, with the first being focused on Defense, the second on Attack, and the third on Magic.

Combat Features
Her playstyle will be the same as it was in Re Mind, with the more brute force take; Her barrier block, the Seven Hearts command, Heart of A Princess shotlock and a dive attack. I also would like to add more things to make her playstyle a little more refreshing / unique. I want her to have a Command Style, similar to Rhythm Mixer from BBS, called Melody’s Chord -- A musical Command Style that uses rhythmic sounds to attack enemies. As well as a light version of ‘Rage Form’ called ‘Pure Form’ — Though this could only be triggered during low HP and MP. This ‘Pure Form’ can stun enemies upon transforming; Its movements are mostly leaping and skipping. It’s faster than Anti-Sora and when dodge-rolling you turn to white sparkles. This form uses mainly acrobatic / ballet-based attacks, runs up walls and can ‘surf’ on her keyblade.

Kairi's spells consist of Waterga, Firaga, Thundaga, Curaga, Sandga, Flowerga, Sparkga, and Holy.

Certain abilities are unlocked after finishing a world:
 * Sandga works like quicksand and traps enemies in palce.
 * Flowerga inflicts the target with poison and their HP will gradually deplete.
 * Sparkga summons rings of revolving rainbow crystals that deals light damage to enemies.
 * Holy sends pillars of light bursting from the ground and causes damage to everything in range.


 * After completing the Brave world, she unlocks her keyblade transformation; Luminous Light.
 * After completing the Tinker Bell world, she unlocks glide and doubleflight.
 * After completeing the Fantasia world, she unlocks her command style; Melody's Chord.

Travel
Kairi obviously doesn’t have a Gummi Ship, nor does she have Keyblade Armor or the ability to use Corridors of Darkness. I did a lot of thought as to how she can travel other worlds alone and liked the idea of the Star Shard. However, Miraclekid92 on deviantart took this idea and far surpassed what I was thinking. The concept would be a ‘Space Sailor‘ type vehicle, based off the Solar Surfer from Treasure Planet. It has a Star Shard sitting on the front that allows it to travel. My main idea is she made it, something she was working on herself back on Destiny Islands. “Sora, let’s take the raft and go—just the two of us!”

After she gets the Space Sailor and realizes it cannot work on its own, she would steal the Star Shard from Yen Sid. The Star Shard works in a mysterious way – it’s supposed to take you ‘where you want to be the most,’ however, if the user does not know how to control the shard, it activates its power randomly and the traveler never knows where they will land.

I imagine when you go to world from world, you ‘surf’ along rhythmically while attacking and avoiding enemies. The best way to describe it would be the SoS Reality Shift in DDD.

Enemies
So, obviously, Heartless are no longer wandering and attacking worlds, nor are there any Nobodies or Unversed left. So this game would have to have a different enemy type — No̷̤͑ise. These are obviously from TWEWY. They would typically be shaped like an animal or creature (shark, bear, dragon, etc.) but I would go for a very abstract design. Visually, they would look like glitches in the world, monstrous entities with a mysterious origin that look like they don’t belong. They teleport around, attacking in quick, swift motions and act very primal, similar to the Dark Hide from BBS. When I picture them, I imagine their design a mix of Nightmares and Unversed.

While they’re essentially just glitches, they have a strong physical presence in the real world, capable of influencing people's thoughts, resulting in rash decisions and negative emotions on the victim's behalf. They can possess people, electronics, machinery, etc. Unlike Heartless or Nobodies, they cannot be controlled.

As Kairi travels from world to world, she starts to suspect these creatures must be a sign of Sora, somehow. As the game goes on, she discovers the creatures don’t show up until she does. Is she following them, or are they following her?

Eventually it will be revealed that these enemies are ‘spirits’ from Quadratum; evil projections of Sora’s thoughts. The more Sora thinks of Kairi in Quadratum, the more the No̷̤͑ise are attracted to her.