It isn’t easy being aKingdom Heartsfan. For starters, it’s unashamedly lame and cringe, but to be a legit follower of thisDisney/Final Fantasycrossover, you have to be comfortable throwing aside its reputation and embracing your inner child. I’m almost in my thirties and the reveal trailer for Kingdom Hearts 3 still makes me cry like a baby whenever I watch it.
There is just something wondrous about the whimsy that Kingdom Hearts managed to instil with its mixture of timeless Disney characters and signature JRPG melodrama. Putting them together results in a gorgeous cavalcade of charming characters, terrific battles, along with a beating heart at the centre that fans can’t help holding close to their own.
But as we pass the third anniversary ofKingdom Hearts 4being revealed, I have to ask - justwhat on earth is going on with the series right now?
Kingdom Hearts 4 Already Feels Like A Distant Memory
Considering its name, I’m going to assume that Kingdom Hearts 4 is a canon sequel to what came before. More specifically, it takes place after the events of Re:Mind in which Sora can’t defeat Yozora (in one of the endings, at least) and is transported to a parallel afterlife-esque world known as Quadratum. It’s pretty much a more exaggerated version of Shibuya in Tokyo, so perhaps the series is going to take a page out of Persona’s book with more realistic characters and a glimpse into Sora’s daily life.
When Sora awakes, he is greeted by Strelitzia, who fans will recognise from some of the mobile titles. This is also officially the beginning of the ‘Lost Master Arc’ now the last one is finally wrapped up.
Nomura himself has said that Quadratum will act as a hub worldof sorts that will splinter off from the usual selection of Disney locales, with Sora eventually returning to speak with a range of familiar characters who will grow and develop as the narrative progresses. This is a killer idea, and I’d love to explore a metropolis themed after beloved Final Fantasy and Disney IP that shifts and changes to my presence. I’m surprised it took Square Enix this long to come up with such an idea instead of limiting progression to the Gummi Ship map for decades.
The trailer continues to show Heartless arriving in the city and Sora pulling out his keyblade to battle them, using aspects of movement and combat that are very familiar in spite of the more realistic visual presentation Kingdom Hearts 4 is going for. But considering it has been three years since this initial reveal, and it’s clearly a virtual slice of sorts and not entirely representative of the finished game, I’m curious how much will change in the full release.
Its Reveal Trailer Isn’t Representative Of The Game We’ll End Up Playing
It immediately reminds me of howKingdom Hearts 3 was first shown off to the world back at E3 2013, revealed back-to-back with a now rebrandedFinal Fantasy 15. It started as a cute compilation of previous games, leading many to believe it was another port or something for the soon-to-be-released PS4, but in a moment that felt like a dream, it was the third entry we had been waiting almost a decade for. And it looked incredible with a softer yet luscious style using the Kingdom Shader, which I prayed would translate into the full experience. But it wasn’t meant to be.
The full game was almost unrecognizable, with harsher character designs and visual motifs designed to take advantage of the peak console hardware at the time. It was still beautiful and charming in its own way, but also strangely stilted. That’s the reality of game development however, with Kingdom Hearts 3 being unveiled when it was still in very, very early development and all the footage shown to use was little more than a brief proof of concept. This is the game Square Enix wanted to create in the coming years, and it was far too eager to show it off.
Bringing us back to Kingdom Hearts 4, it’s hard to get excited about a game like this when we know so little about it. And from everything we have seen or heard about it, most of this has no doubt changed completely or was in absolute flux to begin with. Nomura has been busy contributing to the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy, which was always going to take priority over Kingdom Hearts whether fans were willing to weather the storm or not. But now,with the recent cancellation of Missing Link, it might be coming sooner rather than later.
I want to see more of Kingdom Hearts 4, but I’m not ignorant to how the series dealt out big reveals in the past and how many things can change in only a few short years. I would put my money on the finished experience being nothing like we’ve seen before.
