The thing is, Kingdom Hearts has a completely different sort of risk-reward prospect than FFXV does.
When you die in KH, you're given the option to go back to the beginning of either the room you were in (if you weren't in a boss fight) or the encounter in which you lost (if you were in a boss fight) with your items and EXP reverted to what they had been when you crossed that checkpoint. It's easy to die while trying to heal, but it's rare that you lose a huge amount of progress because of it. (The lack of skippable cutscenes in KHI was probably the biggest punishment-for-death in the entire series. =P ) And, when the checkpoints aren't designed to prevent the loss of meaningful progress, they feel highly unfair (I'm looking at you, final-boss-of-0.2 >=( ).
FFXV didn't want to make death feel meaningless like that, probably for narrative reasons. As such, it implemented a system where dying can result in the loss of hours of progress, particularly in dungeons (where you're completely unable to save most of the time). But, when the risk posed by dying is that steep, it's absolutely critical that players don't feel that any particular death is unfair. And, to that end, the game relies on a pure attrition system, which generally allows the player to choose to flee if they've run out of Phoenix Down.
Of course, by doing that, the consequences of playing badly have to come from something other than death. And to that end, the game makes restoratives that heal max HP and revive you from KO too expensive to rely on without grinding for money if you're not particularly competent at playing the game. It's the same kind of loop as in earlier games, really ("if you can't defeat an enemy, grind for abilities/items to help you get stronger"), just without the constant risk of losing progress. And, when you are low on restoratives, there's a major risk/reward decision to be made about whether to press on ahead regardless.
Anyway, the game as it currently exists is balanced around the existence of Phoenix Down, so removing that option isn't a good idea. (At the very least, Coeurls would be the worst thing ever if you couldn't use Phoenix Down.) Adding a cooldown timer as part of a Hard Mode wouldn't go awry, though.
When you die in KH, you're given the option to go back to the beginning of either the room you were in (if you weren't in a boss fight) or the encounter in which you lost (if you were in a boss fight) with your items and EXP reverted to what they had been when you crossed that checkpoint. It's easy to die while trying to heal, but it's rare that you lose a huge amount of progress because of it. (The lack of skippable cutscenes in KHI was probably the biggest punishment-for-death in the entire series. =P ) And, when the checkpoints aren't designed to prevent the loss of meaningful progress, they feel highly unfair (I'm looking at you, final-boss-of-0.2 >=( ).
FFXV didn't want to make death feel meaningless like that, probably for narrative reasons. As such, it implemented a system where dying can result in the loss of hours of progress, particularly in dungeons (where you're completely unable to save most of the time). But, when the risk posed by dying is that steep, it's absolutely critical that players don't feel that any particular death is unfair. And, to that end, the game relies on a pure attrition system, which generally allows the player to choose to flee if they've run out of Phoenix Down.
Of course, by doing that, the consequences of playing badly have to come from something other than death. And to that end, the game makes restoratives that heal max HP and revive you from KO too expensive to rely on without grinding for money if you're not particularly competent at playing the game. It's the same kind of loop as in earlier games, really ("if you can't defeat an enemy, grind for abilities/items to help you get stronger"), just without the constant risk of losing progress. And, when you are low on restoratives, there's a major risk/reward decision to be made about whether to press on ahead regardless.
Anyway, the game as it currently exists is balanced around the existence of Phoenix Down, so removing that option isn't a good idea. (At the very least, Coeurls would be the worst thing ever if you couldn't use Phoenix Down.) Adding a cooldown timer as part of a Hard Mode wouldn't go awry, though.
