E3 2015 | Where's The Kingdom Hearts III Content? There It Is!
Dear Earthlings,
If you are anything like me you were watching Square Enix’s 2015 E3 press conference with horse blinders on, insanely repeating to yourself “where’s the Kingdom Hearts 3 content!?!”
As the conference progressed I caught a few interesting games here and there that the team had been working on for a while, which all seemed very visually stimulating; not a surprise coming from Square Enix. When Shinji Hashimoto finally announced they would be showing the KH3 content my heart began to race and I was transported back in time to a 13 year old version of myself - the one when I fell in love with the series.
Enough about me and my nostalgia, lets deep dive into the exclusive content shown at E3. The trailer starts off with a view into the new Tangled map. Graphically, the newly added world is stunning; I could tell that the developers were really trying to take advantage of the power next-gen consoles have to offer. On this map you encounter Sora exploring the new lands accompanied by his Disney pals, Donald and Goofy. The map as a whole displayed open world qualities which leads me to speculate that Kingdom Hearts 3 will feature a much more open realm for players to truly explore the beautifully designed worlds with little to no load screens. An open map Kingdom Hearts game will certainly make finding treasures, torn pages, and trinity’s much more challenging and exciting.
Kingdom Heart III Not At E3
During the exploration of the new map, the trailer jumped right into teasing the viewer with some of the new combat gameplay and abilities Sora has acquired. We can see him hacking his way through Heartless wielding a keyblade that resembles the “Star Seeker”, a keyblade shown in previous titles. In mid-action the blade is shown to have a “gun mode” transformation, which goes from dual pistols, and sniper rifle, to a rocket launcher with seeking magic missiles... So unlike me, Sora has gotten his hands on a Gjallarhorn (Destiny joke).
Another new power that stood out is his ability to summon constructs. You see Sora whipping his Keyblade about as he brings forth a train construct to ram his enemies out of his way; this seemed to be stacked into his attack combos which will make for some pretty exciting battles. (Other constructs shown were a pirate ship and a Disney ride inspired “Mad Tea Party” tea cup.
To put the icing on the cake for us they revealed summons and limit breaks are still a go! Sora is shown summoning a flying horse from Olympus that has a chariot attached. The summons allows Sora to sore through the battle field striking his enemies with a barrage of lightning bolts. Needless to say, the action displayed makes me super excited to test out the new play style and combat KH3 has revealed.
Moving on from the action, the biggest awe moment for me was the cinematic scene between what looked like a young Xehanort and Eraqus playing a game that resembled chess. During their game they discussed prophecies and the ancient keyblade war. “Darkness prevails and the light will expire,” said Xehanort as he made his move by advancing one of his chess pieces to the middle of the board. Young Eraqus responds with “Who’s to say I can’t change it, and maybe light will prevail? There’s more to light than meets the eye,” and he advance a chess piece that brings the game end in a draw. The symbolism between light and darkness and the never ending battle between good and evil is what make the Kingdom hearts stories so rich. Finally the scene ends with the screen panning out showing young Xehanort admiring a black keyblade hanging from a mantel on a wall; almost as if he knows that he is destined to wield it.
From that epic scene I am speculating that if the cinematic was not a flash back, it may be a possibility for Sora to be able to access worlds from a past timeline to fix or change certain out comes for the future.
That is all for my review on the exclusive E3 trailer, stay tuned for more Kingdom Hearts coverage as more content is released. But don't just take my words for it, watch it below.
