It seems that Sony is finally bringing the clash between light and darkness to a close in the latest E3 announcement of the next Kingdom Hearts installment. And boy does it look good but the question is, what can we expect from this installment and what do we already know from the previous installments. Well, here is at least is what we can gather from the trailer:
It can be presumed that the two boys from the trailer are none other Master Eraqus and Master Xehanort in their younger years given that they seem to be playing chess in the land of departure and Xehanort is recognizable due to his trademark yellow eyes and silver hair. We also see more confirmation of the importance of Master Xehanort’s keyblade as we see it mounted on the wall as the two boys discuss the ancient keyblade masters and the keyblade war of long ago, which is apparently taboo to speak of given that Xehanort has to tell Eraqus to drop the façade when Eraqus seems to speak as if he has never heard of these ancient keyblade masters.
While that is all we get from the trailer plot wise we do get a bigger glimpse into the mechanics of the game system in the gameplay featured in the trailer.
These new worlds are HUUUGE in comparison to the worlds of the previous entry. whereas in the old entry you would have to go from one area and then load into the next area of a world, now the worlds seem to be one large cohesive section in which you can free roam as much as the game allows according to your abilities (glide, high jump, high jump+, perhaps flying) we also see the keyblade transform into several forms to combat heartless of varying varieties, Sora with yet another new outfit (which as you Kingdom Hearts faithfuls know could mean a number of new mechanics given how the black outfit introduced the drive forms,) a return of the flowmotion system and a new system that allows for sora to hop on board some of our favorite Disney world rides and using them to battle the heartless or more monstrous things such as the rock titan from Hercules. In addition to these changes there is the news that the QTE reaction command system will not be making a return in this game but given that knowledge and previous gameplay experience in Birth by Sleep and 3D, we can trust this is for a good reason and it has been confirmed that there will be things you can do based on good or favorable timing according to Tetsuya Nomura in his interview with Dengeki. It also remains to be seen if dual wielding keyblades will be a returning mechanic in the game
While we gain several tidbits of information in the conversation between Eraqus and Xehanort, the new mechanics of battle (and raising the question how the conversion of keyblade into various other weapons impacts the storyline) and the introduction of the tangled world into the mix. We still don’t know a lot from this trailer however it has been confirmed that the Nomura did have a lot more to bring to the table but chose instead to wait for D23 in November to reveal more, which I guess gives more time for development and to awe us with new information and excitement.
As a player of this series since the very first game came out and it being what hooked me into being a Sony fan (in addition to a Nintendo player) im thoroughly excited to see whats coming next in the series and how the saga plays out for our heroes be it happy or sad (as these games seem to have a habit of doing for us)
Bringing the light to shine into the darkness
Jerry Maynard