Talk:Hollow Bastion

I did a couple of 1 vs 3 matches vs 3 Yarn Yoshi amiibos and the stage seems to transform when I lose a stock and am left with two. Anyone know what’s up? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gligar2007 (talk • contribs) 18:03, January 27, 2022 (EST)

Cleanup tag

So, the thing about it is, that is a condensed version. It was already trimmed down once before (from what I will concede was a lot of information), but I added a small chunk of it back because, as I mention in my edit summary, the problem with removing information is that you remove much of what happens while in the world itself. Hollow Bastion is such an integral part to the Kingdom Hearts series that you kind of have to cover the important details at the bare minimum, and I see no problem with the origin section the way that it currently is, outside of maybe some wording cleanup (since the one who contributed most to that origin section was myself, but I'll also concede that my writing style isn't the most concise). Aidan the Gamer 14:01, January 24, 2025 (EST)

I really don't think we need a plot summary of all the major events that take place at the location. Knowing the full backstory isn't really necessary in the context of understanding what the stage's use in Smash represents. Alex the Weeb 15:15, January 24, 2025 (EST)

In the context of an origin section, Hollow Bastion's feels like it was written entirely by a fan to gush about it, which shouldn't be the intention. The origin section should be a concise summary of the very essentials (such as when it first appeared, its recurring appearances, and short summaries of any cameos), and not every character, event and plot point. As mentioned, check any other stage origin section and it's clear there's far too much here - there's 1087 words, whereas most other stage origin sections are 150-400 words long (the 400ish ones are long because they have to explain stage hazards). If you are uncertain on how to trim it, I can do it for you in the near future when I have time. Mexi (talk) 15:59, January 24, 2025 (EST)

Oh, I'll also preface that I am absolutely not a Kingdom Hearts fan and don't know what's super important and what isn't, so I might end up trimming out a lot of info that's considered essential to lore. However, the focus here should be giving a concise summary instead of diving into details; the Dive to the Heart section is a good example length. I'll probably aim to reach 200-300 words if possible, I hope you understand. Mexi (talk) 16:12, January 24, 2025 (EST)

As someone who is a Kingdom Hearts fan, it's kind of hard not to gush about such a significant and cool world, and maybe that seeped into the writing a little bit, but let me see if I can't trim it down a little bit while also keeping the most important details. Aidan the Gamer 17:39, January 24, 2025 (EST)

So, I initially thought I could just remove some pieces of information, but the problem is that it's kind of hard to do so with such an integral part of the series. Hollow Bastion is the world: everything in KH1 leads up to it (literally and figuratively), several things in future games tie back to it, and there is so much that you can't talk about without bringing up Hollow Bastion at least once. If you skip over details, then you're flat-out ignoring significant information—yes, it's not our job to cover things in extensive detail (that's what the KH Wiki is for), but I'd wager that there's never been another history-rich location like this in the history of Smash, which is mostly because of the kind of series Kingdom Hearts is, where everything is important, and there's so much interconnection between information in so many games. I feel it a great disservice to do so, but I cut out all the plot-related bits from the origin section; the information is not gone outright, since it can of course be found in the edit history, but (and I say this as an editor and not as staff) I do think this is an "all information or no information" type of deal, for better or for worse.

That being said, from going around and looking at other pages, there appears to be a large amount of inconsistency for the origin sections, which range from "this origin section is going to cover plot-related details" and "this origin section is not going to cover plot-related details", and in my opinion, doing the former is the much better option since we are supposed to be an encyclopedia covering so many game franchises—again, while I am aware that it isn't our job to cover things extensively, it's not like we don't have heavily-worded origin sections elsewhere (even for the very series this stage comes from).

In short, don't think of this defense as coming from a biased Kingdom Hearts fan, but from someone who knows and understands the significance this world holds. I, again, am not putting my foot down as a staff member, because that's not how I want to handle this.

Also, as an aside about Dive to the Heart, that section was short to begin with because there's really not much to say about it, since it doesn't have as much surrounding it in the context of the overall plot. It's the tutorial world and home to a couple bosses, and the most significance it really has outside of that is in KH3's DLC. Aidan the Gamer 18:47, January 24, 2025 (EST)

The entire issue with this (and the reason why I put the tag up to begin with) is that a generic player coming onto the wiki is not looking for such complex explanations. An example is what you stated where "Hollow Bastion is the world": I can bring up Xenoblade Chronicles (one of my favorite JRPGs) and Gaur Plain. In the grand scope of its story, the area is quite significant if you decide to dive into it, since I can go into the whole lore of the Bionis and the Mechonis. The thing is, it really isn't necessary; you're pretty much allowing your passion of a series to dictate that such a huge lore dump is "okay and necessary", rather that what is an acceptable amount of info to a normal wiki user. That said, thank you for trimming down the origin section, it's actually short enough now that you could add a bit more info into it if you wanted (I could try to trim down word count if I see problems). Mexi (talk) 07:48, January 25, 2025 (EST)

Again, I will concede that my writing style isn't perfect, and it likely could have overall been worded better, but I will say that much of the complexities lie in the series itself; everyone jokes that Kingdom Hearts is a confusing series, and even I'll admit that, to an extent, they're right even though much of the information is perfectly understandable if you're simply paying attention, which I believe is true of any RPG.

That said, even with my limited knowledge of Xenoblade Chronicles (which, much like you to Kingdom Hearts, I myself am less experienced with), would I be wrong to assume that Gaur Plain is a subsection of the overall world of XC1, much less the series as a whole, where "delving into specifics" has more to do with everything surrounding it (i.e., the Bionis and the Mechonis) rather than information specific to the location? Because if that's the case, then while that does also apply to Hollow Bastion, the key distinction I find is that Hollow Bastion itself is a relevant location as well with information specific to it, and the information both surrounding and specific to it are intertwined with each other. I reiterate that this is the world, because despite it being the penultimate world and therefore there being one more world after where the final boss is fought, the recounting of game events seen in future game openings (namely, KH2, 3D, and 3) show this one and not the other one, simply because of how important it is. Much of the plot-significant events (Sora losing the Keyblade to Riku, Riku getting taken over by the twist villain, Sora committing seppuku and creating a domino effect spanning across the entire series, all of which happen in just the first game btw) happen in this world, and there are significant things leading up to its playable appearance in the game (chief among them being that Riku ended up in Hollow Bastion after the Heartless attacked Destiny Islands, which is how he sides with the Disney villains in the first place and is an antagonist towards Sora for the entire game) that are, in my eyes, therefore relevant information. Even if you remove any potential bias/passion that I may have for this series, of which I will admit there is a fair amount, my point is that it is necessary. If you skip out on information, then people are going to get confused. That's how people got upset by KH3 since it referenced events in what most would consider "side games". I ask this genuinely, does Gaur Plain hold such significance to XC1, even if not to the exact same extent? Again, I'm uninformed, and I'd legitimately love to hear about it if that's the case. Aidan the Gamer 15:07, January 25, 2025 (EST)

Unfortunately my response is the same with how I viewed the origin section before the trim: this is far too much to read and definitely diving way too deep. Genuinely it's more confusing for me to read a huge wall of text than something concise. (I really don't mean to be rude through this entire discussion btw, it's just plainly what I think, sorry.) As for the Gaur Plain question, it doesn't have any significance through Xenoblade's story and is just one area of Bionis, but if we do start a discussion about the Bionis and how each area is connected, that would take a lot of time. In fact I would highly recommend trying XC1 if you ever thought about it, that game is great. Mexi (talk) 16:03, January 25, 2025 (EST)

In truth, when I noted the discrepancy between stages that do and do not cover story-related details for their respective games of origin, I noticed that the ones from RPGs have little to no information covering the actual story-related elements, so maybe this is for the better overall. I don't disagree that making things easier on the reader should be the ultimate goal, but I do also overall think that having the context behind why something is represented the way that it is (including, as a hypothetical topic of discussion, why Hollow Bastion was chosen over locations such as Traverse Town or Twilight Town) is also important, because, again, we're an encyclopedia covering all these different video game franchises, even if we leave the more intricate specifics to the wikis dedicated to covering these franchises individually. Hollow Bastion is an important world to the series, objectively speaking, so it feels weird to just leave it at "it reappears constantly" with no elaboration.

I actually own the 3DS port of Xenoblade, and attempted to play through it a few years back. I've heard nothing but high praise for the game and the rest of the series, so maybe one of these days I'll sit down and actually play the damn thing, lol. Aidan the Gamer 17:43, January 25, 2025 (EST)