The Road to Kingdom Hearts

So if you're anything like me, since E3 2013, a small piece of your childhood has been biting at you every second of every day. You wake up sweating in the dead of night because you need to know what's happening with Kingdom Hearts 3.

If you are anything like me, let me start off with an apology (haha...am I right?) —because being a die-hard Kingdom Hearts fan means repeatedly shoving your heart (ha!) into a giant fan and smiling as it's shredded to pieces by Square Enix and Disney while they stand by laughing and collecting your money. You may have purchased the 1.5, 2.5 and the dreaded 2.8 remixes in order to make sure that you are up to date on every tiny detail so that by the time III comes out you actually know where the convoluted plot has taken you (which will be another article, down the road).

My goal here isn't to talk about the exceptionally convoluted plot, but to instead talk about we know, what we may not know we know, and maybe brush up on why we still care 12 years after the release of KH2.

So without any more ado, here's what we know so far about KH3:

Release date: 2018

Consoles: Xbox One and PS4

Confirmed Worlds: Tangled, Big Hero 6, Hercules, Twilight Town, Toy Story

If you've spied the trailers you've noted the particularly attractive graphics, the gigantic worlds, Sora's new ability to run up walls in these massive worlds and Sora's Keyblade going through an identity crisis. The most recent and up to date information I've been able to gleam I found in the most recent copy of Game Informer Magazin which I've sourced—so cross our fingers I don't get sued, haha am I right ladies and gentlemen!? Haha amIright? Ha...ha...oh who am I kidding...I'm dead inside.

Hardcore Parkour

Sora's new ability to run up walls and manipulate the mechanics of his environment is actually a throw-back to Flowmotion from Dream Drop Distance.

Wait a minute, flowmotion? What the heck is that?

I'm so glad you asked, dear reader.

Flowmotion was a mechanic from Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance. In it, you had the ability to hardcore parkour all over the huge maps. It had mixed reviews. As a matter of fact, a lot of the Kingdom Hearts community feels the same about Dream Drop Distance mechanics as they did about Chain of Memories— which was pretty divided.

Now before you get your panties in a twist about the idea of a controversial mechanic being involved in what is a highly anticipated game—Nomura is quoted within the article talking about the new developments with the mechanic:

"There was some feedback that it was too free and hard to manage...So I wanted to make it so that there's the ability to control it properly. You'll be utilizing the enviroment to propel yourself to an area that you're not normally able to go to, or again, running up the cliff during battle. Those can be expected in each of the different worlds you'll be traversing through." (1)

So that's the Parkour down. What's next?

A Crisis of Keyblades: Why is Sora wielding a fucking drill?

Once again, Numora touches on this in the 2017 Game Informer article.

To paraphrase: each Keyblade is going to have a different form it can take and it's different per Keyblade. So in Toy Story world trailer, Sora is wielding a key that transforms into the drill and the hammer. In the Olympus Colosseum trailer we see a different key blade transform into a shield. The keyblade will start with a first phase of transformation and with successful combos the transformation will develop.

I italicized that information because it's a paraphrase of what Numora said. Pretty much everything I've said so far has been taken from the trailers and that Game Informer article that was just released. It concludes with Numora reminding the public that the game is still in development and therefore subject to change.

The Editorial Stuff

Looking at what Numora said about the potential of keyblade transformations developing, I found myself reminded of the shotlock mechanics from Birth By Sleep. Through the use of commands and their melding new shotlock abilities were made available—and I wouldn't be surprised if the development of this new keyblade mechanic worked in a similar way—with ability trees sprouting from the base. That'd be pretty nifty.

Furthermore, even with all my salt regarding Dream Drop Distance, the release of 2.8 and the fact that it's taken 12 years and the release increasingly convoluted sequels I found my breath taken away by the most recent July 15th trailer for Kingdom Hearts III. I'm cautiously optimistic about the newest release, and was relieved to discover that the game will be released on Xbox One—a console I already own.

Here's to hoping, amIright? Haha...killme.

1. Walace, K. (2017, August). Kingdom Hearts III Reaches for the Stars. Game Informer, 65-67.