For those of you who don’t know, I’m a very big fan of Kingdom Hearts. As a kid, I was unfortunate enough to miss the PS2 while it was in its prime, so I missed out on many awesome games. When I fist saw adds for Kingdom Hearts on TV, I was blown away by how interesting and exciting it seemed to be. Years later, I acquired the game after a friend let me borrow his PS2, and played through it and Kingdom Hearts II back to back. Ever since then, I’ve been hooked, and been very much awaiting the third installment.
Most of you probably know that a tiny trailer announcing that Kingdom Hearts III was in development was shown at E3, but they have now graced us with a small trailer of some of the gameplay itself, so let’s break it down, and see what we have to look forward too.
Trailer:
To start off, I’d like to bring your attention to the Command Menu located in the bottom left of the screen. Those who have played other Kingdom Hearts games may remember how that menu would change based on the world you were in, or based on certain events. While seemingly not as fancy as previous iterations, this feature is shown at various times in the trailer, so I can only imagine that we’ll be seeing the return of this with the new game. Also, note that the menu seems to be going for a decidedly more simply design. Other than the changing name at the top (to dictate what world you’re in), it remains the same throughout.
Moving on, take notice of the new health gauge at the bottom right of the screen. Veterans of the series are most likely used to Donald and Goofy’s (or whatever temporary party member you may have) health and status indicators being directly above Sora’s, taking the form of a circle with half detailing the magic gauge and the other health. This time, all three indicators are clustered together. Also, note that Sora is sporting a shiny new bar. I’m not entirely sure what this is, though the speculation of other fans say it’s most likely the Drive Gauge, or perhaps some reiteration of the D-Link system from Birth By Sleep.
Next on our tour, let’s take a look at the fighting and magic used in this scene. The base combat magic, from what I can tell, haven’t much changed from the other games. Other than looking better, using magic and whacking away with your Keyblade seem like the norm, however, something interesting pops up. Before changing scenes, you’ll notice that Sora seems to use some sort of dual guns, the TwoShot Blaster according to the Command Menu. It unleashes a powerful looking attack, helping quickly clear the area of Heartless. I’m not sure what this new feature is, exactly, or how they plan to implement it into the game, but, I’m looking forward to seeing more from it.
The video switches over from Twilight Town to show us Sora riding on a pirate ship of some sort. If there’s anything I gathered from this, other than them attempting to show off graphics, this is a classic reaction command style event similar to what you would find in Kingdom Hearts II. I can’t be entirely sure of this, as no button prompts appeared on the screen, but it’s my guess on what’s happening. Other than that, not much else seems to be going on here. So, we’ll move on to the last scene.
Lastly, we have Sora and company riding a magic train in order to combat one of the Titans from Hercules. Much like the other scene, this one seems like another reaction command situation. Sora is bound to the train, and fends off the large foe’s attacks with his Keyblade, before jumping out of the train and launching it at him. Again, I can only really speculate what’s going on here, but it might be a hint about what boss battles may have in store for us.
There you have it. Does this trailer make you old fans happy, or politely concerned? For those who have never played a Kingdom Hearts game, would this be the one to convince you to play? Let me know below.
Note - I'll most likely add pictures when I can find them.
