Kingdom Hearts III

[Blade]

Chaos got a ton of screentime in the Dissidia games, so I don't think they'll use him in particular this time. Even Shinryu got popular.

Chronodia? Something like it maybe? Exdeath/Enuo? The NOTHING (the Void) from Neverending Story???

 

[ChipNoir]

Wh...I said equivalent, not a cameo! As in, there's some ORIGINAL evil out between the worlds that influenced Xehanort. You guys went in a weird direction.

 

[Tashasaurous]

The only two things that are KH Original that are such dangers I can think of are either the Master of Masters since we have no clue what his true agenda was, and he only ever told Luxu about what was in the black chest(which looks more like a great big heavy suitcase to me), or the Red Eyes Dweller of Darkness from the Realm of Darkness Aqua had to fight in that Secret Episode of Birth By Sleep.

Unless it's an entirely different and new thing that Nomura could come up with at a later date or has been keeping secret from us for a while.

Edit: I know I'm back to how the ending will turn out, but now I'm going for theories.

How Kingdom Hearts 3 will end:

Spoiler: (Possible Ending Theories Spoilers)

Theory 1(Like Chip's theory): After all of his friends die/get captured, Sora breaks up into fragments of himself in grief which he must recover as shown in that Cloud world before encountering Chithriy who asks him if he didn't know how to restore hearts already, and that would mean that the "Key to Return Hearts" is not a Keyblade at all, but Sora himself as he is the power to restore hearts and then arrives in that "Staircase to Heaven" world where Xehanort and all of his vessels are and fights them but despite this ends up alone and the Realm of Light is beyond repair, so Sora stays in the final world as self-punishment and atonement for his failures.

Spoiler: (Possible Ending Theories Spoilers)

Theory 2: Similar to Theory 1, except Sora travels back in time and realizes that his existance is what caused the mess to happen in the first place so he, in guilt for Ven who probably accepted this a long time ago, erases himself which, as shown in the cutscenes ending of Secret Episode-Birth By Sleep, Sora and Ven both disappear and everyone is still left to handle Xehanort, only without Sora or Ven.

Theory 3: Sora traverses through out the final world to rescue everyone's hearts and restores them to life before they confront Master Xehanort one more time and, both Repliku(Riku's Replica) and Saix help out and the latter sacrifices himself along with Terra and kill Xehanort, they return to the Realm of Light and return to their home worlds where everything is restored and Repliku joins Sora, Riku and Kairi to live in Destiny Islands(via the earlier scene of the two Riku's sitting together at the beach in one of the earlier trailers) and Sora and Kairi share a papou fruit and share their first kiss(their moment together also shown in one of the earlier trailers).

Theory 4: Sora dies after defeating Master Xehanort and rejoins everyone who died before the final ultimate battle as the new Princesses of Light begin to protect the Realm of Light, with someone else taking Kairi's place among the ranks yet Lauriam, Braig and/or the Master of Masters, appear to begin new troubles and the fate of the worlds lies in a new hero, while Minnie and Daisy are grieving for the losses of Mickey, Donald and Goofy.

Theory 5: Terra sacrifice himself while Xion and Roxas fade away, and while Aqua and Ven both leave to find a way to restore and find Terra, Lea and Namine move to Twilight Town while the Original trio and the Disney trio return to their home worlds.

Theory 6: Sora loses and Xehanort rules over and rebuilds the Realm of Light in his image and is thus to remain as the main Antagonist of the Kingdom Hearts Franchise until the end of time.

Theory 7: Similar to Theory 1 and 2. Not long after the defeat of Master Xehanort, Sora, thinking that there is no hope in reviving his friends and restoring their hearts, is confronted by a fully restored Lauriam and Elrena(Or Elenar, depending on how the English version of that scene turns out next year) who now seek Sora's aid when Lauriam/Elrena confess that he/she wants to revive his/her sister Strelitzia and promise to help him revive all of those who died by Xehanort's hands. Sora is skeptical, but seeing how he has no other optains, reluctantly agrees to join the two and they set off on a new journey which leads into a "Revivial/Lauriam Saga" or whatever it would be called in Kingdom Hearts 4 someday.

Another theory: Riku is having a vision of his replica, and that moment with Sora and Kairi is their last moment together before the final battle as everyone probably accepted that their lives are lost in this battle so they return to their homes one final time to have their last moments with everyone they care for, or in Lea's case, to have his last moment in Twilight Town.

Well, those are all of my theories I've come up with so far. Most likely wrong as the scenes are all messed up at the moment.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Anothing thing. Is it just me or do the armors on Xehanort's other selves look more like a combination of the Darklings from X(Chi)/Unchained/Union X and Vanitas's outfit with his helmet?

 

[Blade]

How about we base our theories on the current franchise instead of trying to draw strange parrallells between things like the avengers and smash bros.

I like the film independence day but I doubt will smith is gonna appear as a Disney Princess.

Dunno what you're referring to, but I'm only implying that if they're going to use a Final Fantasy character (hero or villain), it would have to be a famous one that matches with the fame that comes with Disney characters.

The hype isn't only on the Disney side, dude. It's on the FF side too. There's no rule that says it has to be a completely original or preexisting character either.

Most of the time that sort of tactic doesn't fly well with fans anyway, like Necron in FFIX, a giant space flea which came out of nowhere. I don't think I know many people who found him very popular as he had no real connection with the main story at all, but that doesn't mean it has to be a character we already know about.

World of Final Fantasy exemplified the idea that there is "more than one fond memory" of an FF game, and it doesn't have to be FFVII or even games from the old gen or middle gen series. Putting Disney together with FF is how this series started and what it's known for, so you can't really leave out FF without discarding some aspect of what made it great for fans.

 

[Sprites]

Post wasn't directed af you either @Blade

 

[Tashasaurous]

Um, not that it's possible, but I heard that someone over the KHinsider forums made a theory regards to the Keyblade War.

The theory is that the Keyblade War had actually happened twice before Kingdom Hearts 3 events and that the Keyblade War that was shown in XCHI was not the actual first war, but the second war due to the lack of the X-Blade and that another war had before the events of XCHI years earlier and that's where the X-Blade was first used.

Though my theory on that is that Gula had gotten hold of the X-Blade off-screen before he confronted the player and then went off to get himself killed along with his other four fellow Foreteller Masters.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Also, not sure if anyone's heard of the Kingdom Hearts VR Experience with Part 1 supposed to be released on Christmas Day in Japan while Part 2 was to be released on the 18th of next month, but now both parts are delayed with Part 1 taking over the second part's release day while the latter is now coming sometime in Spring.

While it's a bit annoying that they delayed a Kingdom Hearts game or event again, I will agree that it makes sense since they probably and most likely realized that releasing the first part on Christmas Day is not a good idea because, well, who's going to have time to experience it if everyone's spending time with their families on Christmas Day? More than likely, that's the only reason why it's delayed, and releasing it a week later is also a bad idea because of New Year's Day.

 

[ChipNoir]

Apparently the official Kingdom Hearts 3 twitterjust got Norted today...

As far as the Christmas Day thing goes, I dunno what its like for everyone, but most people I know tend to only make the morning a "together" thing, and then everyone under 18 goes off to enjoy their shiny new toys till dinner while the parents enjoy coffee spiked with alcohol because they were up all night wrapping the presents.

 

[Tashasaurous]

The official Kingdom Hearts 3 trailer got Norted today? You mean cancelled or is Sora Norted or what? I know that there was supposed to be a 15 second trailer coming today or yesterday, but I haven't seen that yet.

I know every Christmas is different for everyone, but I was making a point that I don't think anyone would've had the time or energy to even consider in getting or seeing the first part of VR experience of Kingdom Hearts if it did get released on the 25th of this month, which is Christmas Day.

 

[ChipNoir]

I meant twitter, not trailer. The twitter account went down for a bit and came out decked out in Not style.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Ah, I gotcha. Yeah I heard about that. Something to do with a DM or something like that. I'm not sure.

Edit: Spotted someone showing off a picture/snippit of the account before it was taken down, but I won't show it, just in case. However, I can tell you that it was something of a joke. Though why it was taken down remains a mystery.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

@Tashasaurous

While still a big deal, Christmas isn't as big a celebration in Japan as in western countries. The holiday almost certainly wouldn't negatively impact the release of KHVR.

For that matter, I don't know how things are in Australia, but were we talking about the U.S., it probably still wouldn't be a negative. Did you know Christmas Day is the second busiest day of the year for movie theatre attendance in this country?

 

[Tashasaurous]

I wasn't saying it was a negative impact, I was just implying it would've been a little awkward since lots of stores would be closed on Christmas Day.
Well, at least most stores and such on Christmas Day here in Australia will be closed and Morning TV shows don't run on Christmas Day since early-morning reporters get a day or two off.

And no, I didn't know that. I thought stores and most other places close on Christmas Day due to people wanting to have days off in most places in the world. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Mainly due to the fact that the Christmases I have are with family with gift exchange and family lunch.

Still, I can't think of any other reason why the VR experience was delayed.

 

[ChipNoir]

Ehr, the VR thing is probably going to be a digital download anyways. And we know for a fact holiday seasons are the WORST time for updates and downloads because of server crashes when everyone gets a new console. People loooove to play new games on Christmas.

 

[Tashasaurous]

I had thought of the same thing about it's release being digital. So yeah, that's probably the main reason why it was delayed because Square's probably worried the game would crash. That I think is a good move to delay it.

 

[ChipNoir]

If it were up to me to guess, more likely it's either hit last minute bugs and needs more polish, or they want it released closer to KHIII since it really is essentially a hype-raising product. A month before KHIII might be viewed as having diminished effect on hype, especially since the whole thing isn't even more than a half hour of content IIRC.

 

[Tashasaurous]

I think you're right on that part. Though both parts added up, it's only 20 minutes which is ten minutes away from actually being half an hour. Plus, I doubt the VR experience will be as exciting as KH3 itself. It's more like the Blue Episode of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom instead of The Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV game which is on free time as players would want.

 

[Tashasaurous]

As I was listening to music last night(as part of my new annual end of year farewell since it's 2019 in Australia now), I just thought of something.

What do you think if Kingdom Hearts 3 had the "Lifelight" theme song from Super Smash Bros Ultimate instead of Face My Fears or originally Don't Think Twice?

Lifelight (English Version) - Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Music - YouTube

Here's the link to the English Version.

 

[Sprites]

Face my Fears is better.

 

[Lulcielid]

A piece of development trivia:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1081365557268475905

https://www.khinsider.com/news/Edge-Magazine-Features-Kingdom-Hearts-III-Cover-Story-14331

 

[Makoeyes987]

The fact Square for some reason wanted to make their own game engine from scratch, rather than use what the industry standard was that would allow them to make the game in a reasonable time frame is one major factor in why it's taken a decade to get a sequel to a PS2 game

That and other executive meddling drama, of course.

But yeah. A game going through 3 game engines is just... Wow.

Anyways, here's to hoping it's worth it. The fact this thread was started back in 2013 with their announcement of it, and I can see my own post from that time just goes to show how... Ri-donk-ulous this was as a wait xD

 

[Tashasaurous]

I've heard of another main reason why it took so long to get Kingdom Hearts 3 was because Nomura took a long time to convince Pixar to allow Toy Story and at least another world from their studio(Distributed by Disney) to be in the franchise.

Here's the link and what it was said.

When talking about the importance of adding Toy Story to Kingdom Hearts III

Nomura: “After we were done with Kingdom Hearts II and were starting to consider III, we started talks with Disney, I remember saying, ‘If we can’t use Pixar, then we can’t have a third game.’ It’s that important to the game series. The whole world loves Toy Story – everybody feels the appeal of that story and those characters. So yeah, at the very beginning I directly said to them, “If we can’t get this, I don’t want to do it’.”

On how the process to obtain rights for Toy Story and what Pixar wanted them to do

Nomura: “I wrote a general outline of the story and I submitted it to Pixar, It took them several years to okay the story and the character designs. Previous to Kingdom Hearts III, I think these companies kind of saw it more as like, secondary rights permissions. They saw it more as a product, like you would a branded toy or something. This time, it was creator to creator – it was somebody who had made this animation, and somebody who was making this game. We were communicating with each other, myself and these people, so that added an extra level of complexity, because each creator has their own desires, ideas and concepts.”

Yasue: “We were talking to [Pixar story supervisor] Jason Katz, and what he said was he wanted us to make a Toy Story world – a toy store – that they couldn’t.”

On the Gigas

Yasue: “Yeah, I think the first thing [that he concepted] was the robots. We sort of wanted it to be true to what we do – Square Enix-like. And Pixar was actually very open to that. We had this back and forth with Pixar: it placed a lot of importance on the toys. They’re robots, but they’re also toys, so they really wanted that incorporated.”

On Big Hero 6's storyline

Nomura: “Big Hero 6’s story is a moving story that involves a robot, which is something that really fits well with the Kingdom Hearts world,”

Yasue: “Hiro is an inventor, so we wanted something that was invented. So we came up with an augmented reality device that Sora places on as a visor. And using that, we have San Fransokyo – but you’re looking at it through a sort of AR visor.”

When discussing about storylines for the Disney worlds in Kingdom Hearts III

Nomura: “Each title has a different team in charge of it. The storyline is the very heart of Toy Story. Whereas with Monsters, Inc, it’s more about the world that they’ve built. So we’d be told, ‘Oh, well, actually there aren’t monsters of this colour,’ or ‘There are no monsters that have eyes like that’, or ‘The monsters in this world wouldn’t use that word’.”

When talking about the switch from Luminous Engine to Unreal Engine 4

Yasue: "The thing with Unreal Engine 4 is it’s really easy to experiment, gameplay-wise. We didn’t need any assets to start off, so the game designers that aren’t artists at all could actually start to test the game. We had to learn a lot. When we started using Unreal Engine 4, we had these study groups – well, not study groups, but we all sort of… There’s a tutorial. I even did that, I made my own robot, a robot that changed shape. We never used it in the game, we were just testing it out. We had contests too, I remember. Each game designer made something, and we sort of compared it. And this had nothing to do with the game, because we had to learn about the engine. That was part of the development timeline, and was something that contributed to and affected the schedule.”

Nomura: “It was a whole year that we had to kind of rewind and restart. As a dev tool, Unreal Engine 4 is kind of an all-in-one – it’s got all of the stuff that is needed in it, it’s used around the world, and we also got really great support from [Epic]. They were very helpful through the entire process. It would have been a different story if the team making Luminous had been members of the Kingdom Hearts team. But they were a different team, so that did make things a bit more difficult.”

When talking about Nomura's personal criteria for levels in Kingdom Hearts games

Nomura: “It really doesn’t matter to me whether or not they’re going to be popular, it’s just about whether the game is going to benefit from adding them. In past Kingdom Hearts games, we’ve included a number of more minor titles. It’s not only about what’s interesting, it’s also about variety. Of course, even after that fixed point when we have decided what the worlds are going to be, occasionally there are Disney things that come up afterwards and I’m like, ‘Ah, I wish I could put that in there’.”

When talking about how the team whats to make Kingdom Hearts III perfect

Nomura: "There have been a lot of people who have said as the hardware changes, we’re going to have to change things. As the way of creating things changes, we’re going to have to change our management style, and there’s a lot to keep up with. But this company, in at least one way, hasn’t changed since it was called Squaresoft. We want to make fun stuff; we want to make cool stuff. And the team here in Osaka working on Kingdom Hearts III are all of that same mindset – they just wanted to make something good.”

Yasue: “Nomura wants it to be perfect, I want it to be perfect, Disney wants it to be perfect, right? And our fanbase, they expectit to be perfect. We can’t have it be sub-par: it’s Kingdom Hearts III. It just can’t be your average well-made game. It has to be more than that.”

On the legacy of Kingdom Hearts III

Yasue: “I guess I wanted to make a game that was really talked about. We want to sell a lot of games, yes – but at the same time, it should be a game that could be talked about ten years from now. When I came to this company, I was really inspired by Final Fantasy VII, and so it would be great if kids play our game, and they come to our interviews, and they join us, right? It had to be something that big. Something with a legacy.”






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Edge Issue 328 is available now at newsstands and digitally on the Google Play Store.



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[The Twilight Mexican]

@Tashasaurous

Thanks for that link and quotations. Very interesting.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Your welcome. Though what confuses me is that on what Jason Katz was talking about Nomura making a 'Toy Store' that he and Pixar couldn't. I mean, they have full rights of the Toy Story franchise, with the fourth and extremely likely the final one coming out this year. They came up with Al's Toy Burn, what was the reason in now being able to make another Toy story that could've been similar to Galaxy Toys?

One logical answer is that maybe they couldn't figure out how to do it, but something about that statement says otherwise and that's what confuses me.