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Not much coming out of E3 but they are fixing some things for the localization, one of those being I guess if you dropped during a boss fight and then come back, the boss's health was full while yours wasn't so that's being fixed.
Also, I'm pretty sure the big T-rex looking Dream Eater made an appearance in a trailer that you can watch on the Nintendo eShop on the 3DS, but it was a Spirit Sora was fighting with, so that's nice to see.
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I've been having these weird thoughts lately… Like, is any of this for real… Or not?
There is a rumor going around lately and wikipedia states "Once Kingdom Hearts 3D was released, Nomura was asked whether the last credits' image resembling a roman numeral III as well as the secret message directly written in English stating "The past will be reawakened as a new number In never-before seen detail Prepare yourself for the awakening of the next number". Nomura refrained from answering such questions"
Now i know not to trust wiki and i would like to know if anyone here can confirm this?
Have you guys heard anything about it?
anyone played the japanese version maybe?
So apparently in Europe, the game will be available in English, French, and German. But apparently it isn't being translated into Spanish and Italian. The boxes and manuals will be Spanish and Italian, but not the game itself. It's causing quite and uproar over on the SE European site. Commentors are... not happy.
Also this is pertaining to text only of course. The voice overs will be English no matter what.
It's too bad really, considering all the other games have been. I wonder what's happened...
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I've been having these weird thoughts lately… Like, is any of this for real… Or not?
So the demo's out and it's pretty fun. First thing I noticed was that the graphics are gorgeous; they looked as good as KH2, but without the ugly I get by playing my PS2 on a HDTV. It's also in 3D which is nice, adds some depth. Gameplay's all jazed up; you can leap and fly and twirl and grind around virtually anywhere, which really disorientated me. Same thing with combat; Sora was just leaping all over the place. It'll take some getting used to.
Loved Neku scorning Sora for trusting every stranger he meets and calling people his friend a minute after meeting them. My thoughts exactly.
It's annoying the 3DS speakers are so tinny, this is a game I'll have to buy the 3DS XL for play with headphones. I also dislike the d-pad below the circle pad, because it's hard to get to your commands; I guess I'm just used to clawing it with BBS.
Very cool though, only one month to go. And in that time I've got to finish KH2 and suffer through Days.
Last edited by Singularity; Jun 22 2012 at 10:10 AM..
I thought the demo was actually quite awesome. It's painfully short, but I figured that would be the case, seeing as how it's Square Enix. I loved the link system and thought it was absolutely adorable. I agree with Connor though; the combat was a bit much to get used to. Granted, it was a lot of fun, but at times I was like, "What am I doing...?" I thought the flow movement system or whatever it's called was fantastic. I'm definitely going to be using that a lot.
And yes, I agree that the D-pad selections are just awkward and hard to manage in the heat of battle. We'll see how that goes though.
I also laughed when I saw that Balloonra was a spell.
It's wonderful that 3D doesn't seem mandatory at all, because fuck that noise. Yap yap, what everyone above said, and also Sora's VA is getting awkwardly old. They need to go ahead and age Sora up again in KH III and stop with this reverting to a child nonsense.
I agree with DP. I'm glad that the 3D nonsense is just a gimmick, and that you don't need to use it in order to enjoy the game fully. Also, at this point, I'm pretty willing to accept a recast for Sora's voice. He was great, but unless they age him, Haley Joel Osment just isn't going to work anymore.
The only thing I was disappointed about was that the demo version doesn't support the Slide Pad Attachment. I don't care too much because I know it works with the retail version of the game but I did want to see what it would be like because I just so happened to have bought it yesterday. Would have been fate...
Also, the slide pad pro thing, kinda sucks, or maybe I just need to get used to it.
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I've been having these weird thoughts lately… Like, is any of this for real… Or not?
The thing is, Osment's work as Vanitas in BbS convinced me that he would be an absolutely perfect voice for an older Sora. The dude really isn't bad at all, it's just getting awkwardly noticeable that he can no longer do young Sora. His voice seems strained, and it most certainly doesn't sound the same anymore.
The whole flowmotion thing is not really my cup of tea, as far as I can tell. It's a little bit too frenetic for me to get a good handle on using it in any tactical sense. The plus side, I suppose, is that it's completely powerful and doesn't seem to require a lot of control to use effectively in combat. Still, the fact that it's basically button-mashing to win means I doubt I'll make much use of it.
One thing I liked was the abilities, and indeed the tone of the entire demo so far. It was colorful and whimsical. While it seemed to sacrifice some of the more serious KH tone with the abilities, I still think it was immensely suited to a dream world. I'm talking about the abilities 'sparkga' and 'balloonra'. And, even more encouraging, both of them seemed to have very unique effects! If we see more out of the ordinary stuff like that, I'm even more sold than I was before.
Last edited by Death Penalty; Jun 23 2012 at 03:07 AM..
The Making of Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance
Quote:
IGN: You’ve been working on the Kingdom Hearts series for quite a while now. Could you tell our readers a little about your history with the franchise?
TY: My first Kingdom Hearts I started with was Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories, that was maybe seven years ago. After that, we worked on Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, and then our current title, Kingdom Hearts 3D. So this is my third title working on the series. I also did a lot of the planning for Re:coded as well.
IGN: Broadly speaking, what was the overall vision for Kingdom Hearts 3D? What kind of journey did you want to take players on?
TY: Well, when Nomura came up with the original design document, I think he wanted to have the story revolve around Riku a bit, and the Mark of Mastery. I think he really wanted to connect the story, working on 3D, to the next Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts 2. So I think there was a lot of secrets revealed in the story of 3D.
For me as a game designer, a real time game designer, I really wanted to do something that would sort of give the players a glimpse of the future, with action-based functionality, kicking balls, sliding down ramps, you could spin around poles and stuff. I really wanted to do something that was more aggressive and more speedy. I think we were able to do that with 3D.
IGN: And what was it like developing a Kingdom Hearts game specifically for the 3DS hardware? Are there any specific features or capabilities you were excited to use?
TY: I was really excited about using the bottom view, the touch screen. And so we implemented the reality shift system. Nomura-san wanted us to make something that really integrated the bottom view with the top view, so it wasn't really just a reference map. He wanted you to actually play with it. And so we came up with the reality shift system, which you could use for each world. There's a unique system for each world. For example, in the Musketeer world, there's a comic book, and you can touch the comic book to actually deal blows to your enemies. For Tron Legacy, you could decode your enemies and control them. So I think that aspect really gave each world of 3D a unique gaming experience, a unique feel.
IGN: How did the idea for the drop system come about? And what do you think the idea of forcing players to switch between characters adds to the experience?
TY: Well, on our previous Kingdom Hearts, Birth by Sleep, it centered around Aqua, Ventus, and Terra. You had to actually finish the story before starting a new one. It sort of felt like they were separate stories, in a way. This time, Nomura I think wanted us to make it into a sort of united story. There are two characters, but it's a united experience. We wanted to add a particular thrill, I think, the thrill of… uIf you drop during a boss battle, for example, you have to switch characters. So there's a little bit of a time limit. I think it was a little bit more thrilling. Another thing we wanted to add was the bonus relay system, we wanted Sora and Riku to cooperate. For example, by playing Sora and gaining points, you could give bonuses to your next character, Riku. There was a strategic depth to it, I think. I thought that made it interesting as well.
IGN: Were there any difficulties that the drop system caused during development, particularly in regards to the game’s flow and pacing?
SE: The pacing was really difficult. I think the drop system's one of the things that was most difficult about making the game. The first time we made it, a lot of our development team really didn't like it, so we actually changed it. We made it so that you could actually drop whenever you wanted via the camp menu system. When you press start you can choose when to drop. That made it a bit more user-friendly. But then after that, the quality assurance people and the development team really liked it. So in a way, yeah, it was changed and we tweaked it a lot to make it the way it is now, to make it work.
IGN: How did you go about selecting which Disney and game worlds to include in the game? And once you decided, how did you make sure they all meshed together?
TY: Actually, I think each world has its own reason for being. We proposed, for example, the Musketeer one because we wanted something for Mickey, Donald, and Goofy. They weren't wearing costumes, it was a different sort of aspect of Mickey, Donald, and Goofy. We thought that might be interesting. Or the Hunchback of Notre Dame, I think we had a lot of user input, a lot of our users wanted that world to be made. I think it was a really popular Disney movie, so we did that. Also, for Tron Legacy, I think we wanted something that was a bit more futuristic. When you list all the worlds off, each has its own characteristics. Tron added to that, I think. It was more futuristic, it was a bit more real than the other worlds. I thought that might be interesting as well.
IGN: Was it hard to make them feel like they all belonged together?
TY: Well, not really. One of the great things about Kingdom Hearts is that each world has its own unique characteristics. There is one story that unites it all, but in the same way, I think the different characteristics really shine through. So there's a lot of variety.
IGN: How did it come about that characters from The World Ends With You were included in Kingdom Hearts 3D?
TY: Well, that was because of Nomura, to be honest. But by adding it, I think Traverse Town was really... we altered it a bit, made it really interesting. A lot of graffiti, and some of the buildings sort of resemble Shibuya now. I think it made Traverse a little bit different from previous games. That added to the newness and freshness of the game.
IGN: Now that the game is complete, what aspect of the finished product are you most proud of?
TY: Well, there's a lot. I really like the flow motion. By kicking walls, sliding down ramps, you could really make dynamic actions. And all of the actions are really connected to your attacks and everything else. I think that gives the game a new feel. And we adjusted our enemies and our maps accordingly for that. For Kingdom Hearts 3D I think you'll see a lot more maps that are wider, higher, there's a lot more hidden treasures along the way. I think that was really popular with the Japanese audience.
IGN: Speaking of the free-flowing combat, how did that come about?
TY: Nomura wanted us to make something where you felt very free, that was free of restrictions. I planned it out over maybe two or three days, and we actually built it on the Birth By Sleep system first. It only took about two or three weeks. I think we did that maybe in November of 2010, it was really quick. By developing that, I think our team really understood what we wanted to make. Our direction. I think that really sped things up.
IGN: What's your recommendation for gamers who've never played a Kingdom Hearts game before? Are there other games in the series you think are important to play before Dream Drop Distance? Or can they jump right in and figure it out?
TY: I guess if you played Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep and one and two, it might add a lot. But for Kingdom Hearts 3D, we added the memento system. When you earn a memento after an event or a cutscene, you can open it up in the camp menu and it actually tells you the story of Kingdom Hearts one and two and Birth By Sleep, for example. So you could just jump in if you want. But if you really want to understand everything, all the detail, I think you should play Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep and the first two games.
IGN: What's next for Sora and Riku?
TY: We get that a lot. [laughs] We're still thinking about it. I think 3D is really a hint to the future in a way. We developed it as if it were a console game. We made it for the handheld, but for us it was meant to feel like a console game in a way. I think it really took the Kingdom Hearts series to the next level, it feels like Kingdom Hearts II and Birth By Sleep on steroids. It's really insane what you can do. So I'm not really in a position to say what we could next, but... 3D, for us, was the future.
IGN: I have one final question. I know you can't say too much about it, but what can you tell us about Kingdom Hearts 3D tying in to Kingdom Hearts 3?
TY: In a way, the action and the story are directly linked to Kingdom Hearts 3. I guess that's about all I can say, really.
IGN: So definitely play this if you're interested in Kingdom Hearts 3?
TY: If you play it all, it's really connected to Kingdom Hearts 3. The Mark of Mastery exam and how Riku becomes a Keyblade Master, it connects to the next story.
Reviews have been decent. The highest I've seen so far has been an 8.5, the lowest a 7. As always, criticism's leveled at the plot being 'hard to follow,' but being the intrepid nerds that we are with blank flow charts just waiting to be filled in, that shouldn't be a problem.
My copy should arrive in two days. I'll let you all know how it is.
Bah, Kingdom Hearts has NEVER been hard to follow unless you didn't play previous games. I hate that they keep calling the plot convoluted when it's pretty ridiculously simplistic and easy to grasp if you just do the required reading. Does it really throw reviewers off so much that you have to have played the earlier titles in this continuing story to grasp what's going on in its latest installment? Come on.
This thread is so dry of updates! Here are updates!
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Tai Yasue Interview with Siliconera Part 1
Spoiler:
Quote:
How did you pick the worlds? You have the Hunchback of Notre Dame world; the Musketeers, which isn’t as well known; and Fantasia, which is a key film.
Tai Yasue, Director: Each world has its difference and meaning. Notre Dame had a lot of user feedback. A lot of users wanted Notre Dame to be added, so we listened to them and we put that in. For The Three Musketeers, we thought it would just be interesting that Mickey, Donald and Goofy were dressed differently. [They] were sort of themselves but in a different way. We thought that would be sort of fresh.
For Fantasia, we wanted players to play with the music. We have some nice classical music, so I guess a music-centric game.
I remember reading in another interview that you were originally thinking about having the original Tron world in the game, and then you decided to go for [Tron] Legacy. Sora was supposed to go to the original Tron world and Riku would go to Legacy. Can you tell us about that?
That was Fantasia and Fantasia 2000, but we also considered Tron, too. I think we wanted Tron: Legacy at the very beginning, but for Fantasia and Fantasia 2000, we were thinking about that. Sora was going to go to Fantasia and Riku was going to go to Fantasia 2000.
We wanted Sora and Riku to go to the same world but in a different way, but at the very end, we looked at a lot of music and locations in Fantasia and thought that was really rich, and we wanted to concentrate on the best locations, so we concentrated on one Fantasia.
A lot of fans are happy to see The World Ends With You characters in Traverse Town. It was kind of cool how you had Joshua explain what was going on between Sora and Riku.
Well, actually, Nomura wanted The World Ends With You added and we wanted to sort of change Traverse Town. We always use that world, so we wanted to make it fresh and new in a way that would work. The fields for example were buildings that looked sort of like Shibuya with a lot of graffiti and we had a change of look.
For previous Kingdom Hearts, we’ve used a lot of Final Fantasy characters and we wanted a departure from that for Traverse Town, so The World Ends With You was a natural selection.
What was it like programming the AI for all the different Dream Eaters?
We actually used a different AI system for [Kingdom Hearts] 3D. During Birth by Sleep, it was script-based, but for 3D, we used a new game flow tool. For one Dream Eater, there’s actually several “characters”. Several personalities. So if you have your mascot characters, they would do different things. We were able to have the freedom to make a wide variety of tweaks and changes for the Dream Eaters.
For the mascot Dream Eaters that you carry along with you, they actually change along the way if you pet them and stuff. So it really depends on the character. They might just sleep, they might be really useless, or they might be angry all the time and attack a lot. Overall, there was a lot more AI than Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep.
What are you going to do with all that AI for a future Kingdom Hearts game? What are you going to do with all this tech that you developed for 3D?
Well, there are a lot of ideas coming along. I’m not really in a position to talk about the next Kingdom Hearts, but I think AI is something that we really have put more power into. For the next-gen consoles like the PS3 for example, there’s a lot more things you can do compared to the 3DS, just because there’s a lot more CPU power. So, if we were to make a game for the next-gen [systems], for the PS3 for example, we would rather like to utilize that part.
Kingdom Hearts 3D’s combat is fun, but what drove me crazy at first was the “Drop” mechanic. In the middle of the first boss fight in Traverse Town I got “dropped,” so I tried to switch back really quickly and the boss’ health regenerated.
[Laughs] Nomura wanted it to be a bit thrilling in a way, so we added a time limit. It’s a little bit different in the North American version. We tweaked it, it’s not a big difference, but Sora and Riku’s HP will become full at the beginning of the boss battle, so if you’re dying, you can start over, too.
We didn’t really want to lose the character of the game. It’s one of the parts that’s sometimes stressful. When you’re successful, when you beat the boss at the last few seconds it feels really good.
I got the hang of it later on and how you can use it to boost your character. That’s when I felt it worked, but at the beginning when someone doesn’t know what’s going on, it’s like, “Awww…”
[Laughs] As you go along, you earn a lot of drop bonuses, so we wanted the characters cooperating. A feel for cooperation, and we did that using the Drop system, I think.
While Kingdom Hearts 3D uses the deck command system, I found myself using more Flowmotion attacks. They seemed to overpower everything. You can bounce back and forth between enemies, and it negates almost all of your commands.
At the start of the game, the Flow-Motion may feel powerful, but as you progress, at the later stages, the Deck Commands are really powerful. Flowmotion is used more when you want to escape, so there’s a difference in meaning and strategy. At the very beginning, really, we wanted to introduce Flowmotion, so the Deck Commands are a little weaker, but as you progress, that balance changes.
I see what you mean because in the beginning I used Flowmotion a lot. One of the most interesting thing in Traverse Town, when you go underground, there’s all of those grind rails. I know you can ride those and find the correct path to the top, but I just jumped all the way, by doing an infinite wall-jump using Flowmotion. Did you plan for that?
Oh, we did. We planned for that. Kingdom Hearts isn’t a game where you have to do one single thing to clear it. We wanted options–you can go this way or that way. It’s not just one route, you can go up the wall, you can slide down a ramp. You don’t need only need to use the Deck Commands, you can use Flowmotion or you can use Reality Shift. We just wanted to provide a wider range of options and really wanted users to pick which strategy they use.
In some places, though, like Prankster’s Paradise, I feel like it almost “breaks” the level. Like when you flip the world upside-down. All the really good treasure chests are at the top, but you can avoid doing all the platforming by horizontal wall-jumping across.
I guess, but if you want the treasure chests, you have to actually switch it over. One of the concepts for Flowmotion is a lot of freedom. And when we say “freedom,” we wanted the player to feel free to do what they want to do. You could use a lot of map gimmicks, but if you don’t want to you can use Flowmotion too.
What other tweaks did you make to the North American version, other than to the Drop mechanic?
I think that’s just the major change; we haven’t changed that much. We wanted the Japanese version and North American version to be pretty similar. I think there’s a Drop bonus that was added. I think it’s called “Drop Speed Down” in Japanese, but I don’t know what the English name is. We added the drop bonus and that’s about it. Not a lot of major changes.
Going back to Prankster’s Paradise when you’re playing as Riku, all the time, there’s this wall of text that tries to explain Chain of Memories. Kingdom Hearts started with a very simple mythology that’s gotten more complicated over time. What’s your view on how to make the mythology more accessible?
I really think it depends on the player. Some really want to know everything. For [Kingdom Hearts] 3D, you’ve got the Mementos, and you don’t have to see them if you don’t want to. You can skip it. At the same time, if you want to read it, you can go in and see it.
We developed the game so that hardcore players who want to understand it can do that, and people that just want to play lightly—who play all the Disney worlds, experience the Disney story–they don’t really have to see all the deep stuff.
There have been 10 years of Kingdom Hearts and kids who started playing the series when they were 10 are 20 now. Since we’re still focusing on the same characters, how are you going to make the Kingdom Hearts story follow an audience growing up with the franchise.
In 3D, we introduced the Memento system to cover that. In future titles, we’re going to really have to think about that.
I think for Kingdom Hearts you can really enjoy the lighter aspects. It’s about coming to terms with Riku’s darkness. It’s about friends. There are a lot of easy themes too and when you go to a Disney world each one has a story that is really accessible. If you want to understand everything it might be a little complex, but if you want to play lightly I think that’s possible too. Obviously, we want new players to access the game in a way so we’re going to have to think about that. I can’t really talk about our new titles yet, but for 3D we tried to do that with the Memento system.
Do you have any other plans for the 10th anniversary?
Not at the moment, no. [Kingdom Hearts] 3D is definitely our 10th anniversary title.
Without spoiling it, can we talk about the ending a bit?
I would just like to say that, this time the game is more centered on Riku and how he comes to terms with the darkness. Kingdom Hearts 3D really connects to the next Kingdom Hearts–Kingdom Hearts 3. And in a way, I think you’ll be able to see a glimpse of the future by playing Kingdom Hearts 3D.
FFDream: We presume, of course that this technology will be put to use in future productions coming from Square Enix. Do you believe Tetsuya Nomura could perhaps make use of this technology in Kingdom Hearts III?
Julien: It's already evident that we're using Luminous Engine on various franchises other than just Final Fantasy. However, Crystal Tools, as I was talking about earlier, is employed exclusively on Final Fantasy, only for now. Since the next Dragon Quest X uses Crystal Tools, as well as internal projects such as Kingdom Hearts which also utilize Crystal Tools, it's evident that Luminous Engine will cover a large spectrum of gaming franchises and I hope it will be taken advantage of by other teams, but we still have a lot of work to do.
Loving it so far. I didn't realise all TWEWY cast was in the game; I thought it was just Neku. That's a nice surprise. The game looks gorgeous and plays fantastically, and the story seems good so far too.
I just wish we weren't back with young-Sora and young-Riku. So far as I can tell there isn't really a narrative reason; surely they could have had Yen Sid strip their abilities while keeping them looking the same. It's just annoying because Haley Joel-Osmont is obviously struggling to maintain that higher pitched tone.
He proved as Vanitas that he does a good 'older' voice, and he's a good voice actor; it's just putting a strain on him to do young-Sora. Hopefully in KH3 we'll see a 17/18 year old Sora.
