Not Lightness
I guess while we’re here on the Kingdom Hearts topic, I might as well talk about Kingdom Hearts. It’s undeniable that Kingdom Hearts III will be the next title in the series. They’d be stupid not to. They put it off long enough trying to save Final Fantasy. Kingdom Hearts is on track to being the first relevant on-going series to completely skip a generation of consoles if they wait any longer.
Most everyone is speculating that III is just around the corner, and after being Dream Drop Distance I have to agree. Here’s what I hope to see in a new Kingdom Hearts game.
1. A new Utada theme song. Every game has been either Simple and Clean or Sanctuary. They’re both catchy but they’ve been used over and over and over, and a new numbered title should mean new song.
2. Less mini-game worlds. Now I don’t mean do away with the mini-games, just don’t devote an entire world to them. Honestly, it’s awful. The Little Mermaid’s world in KH1 was the most fun world there because you got to swim around and shit. The same world in KH2 was an atrocity. Singing? No. Just no. Put mini-games spread out, and as you come across them, give us a hub we can access them whenever in the main menu. Don’t throw away good quest opportunities in an entire world for that. (The only exception is Winnie-the-Pooh. I expect only to go on honey adventures and Tigger bounce competitions and garden harvesting with Rabbit when I go to the 100 Acre Woods.)
3. The widest most diverse collection of Disney worlds in any of the game’s we’ve seen so far. Every world visited at this point in any of the titles, console or handheld, plus at least half as many new worlds. I think that Treasure Planet and Wreck-It Ralph are must haves. This is the final showdown between the seven guardians of the light and the thirteen seekers of darkness, and I want to feel like the entirety of this universe is being effected by it.
4. Sora, Donald and Goofy. I think it’s fair to believe the story will revert back to following just those three, but its hard to say. A lot more characters are involved, but I would love to go back to that trio being our sort of avatars into this universe. There are other keyblade wielders, but this is Sora’s story. Let’s make him and his two best buds the focus again.
5. Larger, more alive levels. Something I felt was missing from all the worlds before were the people that live there. If you went to Agrabah, you saw Aladdin, Jasmine, Genie, Jafar, Abu and the Saltin. Obviously plot specific characters. But Agrabah is a massive city full of people constantly walking around going about their lives in any of the movies. It would be cool to have the levels feel that way in the game. It’s forgivable that it didn’t in any previous titles, since Kingdom Hearts 2 was already pushing what the PS2 was capable of pulling off as is. But we’re on higher tech now. It’s fair to say that having citizens of each world be going about their lives, and even running in fear when Heartless attack.
6. Sora-Kairi shipping. Their romance has been at this point kind of childish and innocent. They were fourteen when the story started so that made sense. But now they’re going on sixteen (WHOA looks like we got some big shots over here) and considering all that’s happened, I feel they’ve grown a lot more as characters, more than most kids their age would be. I want to see their relationship grow as well. In the least, just have Sora at the most inappropriate moment go “give me some sugar baby” and french her without any heads up or context.
At the end of the game, Sora just grabs her and says “Hail to the king baby,” and lays a big one on her a la Army of Darkness.
Glad you got that reference haha
This. Is. My. BOOM-KEY!!!
Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. YOU GOT THAT?!?
This thing goes for 10,995 points.
you can find it on the adventuring goods section.
Sadly, Utada might not be terribly willing to work on KH III, seeing as she’s been on hiatus and hasn’t released any music in the last few years. But we shall see.
The next KH has got to be slated for the PS4 – with that announced I just don’t see any reason they’d want to release on the soon to be outdated PS3, and heaven knows how long Sony will take to actually getting around to designing something besides the controller. Plus Square still owes me that HD remake of Final Fantasy VII they promised, like, six years ago.
I’m with you on all the points you make about how KH III should be, but you missed a couple. First, I think that Sora & co getting themed costumes for each world isn’t too much to ask, and would really add to the immersion. I mean, they get costumes for Halloween Town and whatever the Tron-world was called, why don’t they get robes in Agrobah or togas in Olympus?
Secondly, some sort of multiplayer would be great. Or I was going to argue that, but halfway through writing the point I realized that adding a multiplayer element really is a horrendous idea, so never mind.
Well then they need to use one of her older songs that fit the feel or something. I’m pretty sure Simple and Clean and Sanctuary were just songs on their own and were used for the game after they were made.
I’m kinda hoping it will be on the Xbox as well, since Final Fantasy did that. but if all the bad rumors about the Nextbox are true, I don’t think I’ll mind if its a PS4 exclusive, since I’m prepared to get one anyways.
And I never thought of that, about the costumes for each world. But that’s totally freaking right. That should be the case. The manga has Sora in robes and a turban in Agrabah I think. I think that’d be cool.
I’m mehish on the multiplayer. I never even acknowledge any multiplayer components on the handhelds. Its just not really necessary.
And well we’re at it, how about a different Final Fantasy classic villain as a hidden boss? Sephiroth has kicked our a$%es in… four of the games now? Five? How about Kefka or Onion Knight? They’re just as powerful as Sephy, if not even more so.
I get the feeling they’ll want to follow up on Sephiroth and Cloud disappearing at the ending of KH2
Maybe they could do a Mass Effect style multiplayer where you just fight waves of heartless and nobodies as any one of the game’s characters with your friends. This would be fun actually and wouldn’t steal from the single-player. Plus you could unlock characters as you played, such as King Mickey, or any of the villains. This component would be borrowing from 358/2 Days, which I thought was successful and had me playing the game to unlock and play as other characters even after I beat it. I still never played its multiplayer but if they did the ME3 style I’d have more reason to try it
That is a fantastic idea, and it would add a whole new layer of challenge to old-hat players by giving them the option to use characters with different abilities (and possibly controls) than what Sora has.
The final two characters to unlock would have to be King Mickey and Xehanort. That’s basically the Yoda and Sidious of the series, so they need to be saved for last and harder to unlock. As well, characters like Cloud would be cool to unlock.
You would need to level up each character individually though. Like you unlock them, then play them to level them up. So each one is a different challenge to learn.
I don’t know much about Kingdom Hearts, but I believe that their was a changing of the guard at Square Enix after FFVII, and the new guys don’t want to use older characters willy nilly, so most of the FF cameos on Kingdom Hearts have been from post FFVII games.
Recently the FF characters haven’t played too big a roll in the story. But of all the ones that have appeared, I’m positive they’re all from FFVII and after
In KHII you play a round of Struggle with Vivi. Sure, the character Vivi is from VIII or IX (I think?), but he’s basically the Black Mage sprite from FF I… that counts for something, right?
FFVIII was made by the new guys as an homage to the older games. I think Setzer from FFVI has appeared in Kingdom Hearts, don’t ask me how I know. A shame since FFVI is usually tied with VII for best game in the series and had the most (and possibly best) characters. I’d buy a PSWhatever to see Terra running around with Mickey and Donald. Le sigh.