Square Enix shared the latest trailer for Kingdom Hearts III during E3 this year, and directors Tetsuya Nomura and Tai Yasue also had more to share during the Square Enix Presents livestream. For those of you who missed the stream, here’s a recap of what went on.
The spotlight on Kingdom Hearts begins at the 5:20:30 mark of the video, where they start out by talking about the Final Fantasy VII remake. Nomura expresses his gratitude to fans, and explains how he was congratulated by colleagues and friends in Japan until early in the morning, and he’s relieved to hear that Western fans were happy, too.
He also spoke with Yoshinori Kitase and Kazushige Nojima at their Tokyo office to discuss how the trailer was received, and how they’ll move forward henceforth.
Next, Nomura explains that Kingdom Hearts Unchained X[chi] is pretty similar to its browser counterpart, but there will be some differences, and you’ll figure out the differences and a secret between the two after playing the game. And of course, the smartphone version will have easier touchscreen controls.
With all the different Kingdom Hearts games and now with Kingdom Hearts Unchained X[chi] releasing in the West, Nomura provided a look at the main story timeline for the series.
Unchained X[chi] will also feature characters that have yet to appear in other Kingdom Hearts games, and they’ll play big roles in the storyline, so Nomura says that this will be a great opportunity for people to get a better understanding of what’s going on in the storyline.
As far as other Disney characters go, we got a look at Alice in one of the screenshots, but there are more characters that are likely to show up, and they’ll all play an important role in the story.
Moving on to Kingdom Hearts III, Nomura explains how we got a first look at the world from Tangled, and he’s been asked by the media about why they decided to go with that world in particular. The reason is simply because it was one of the first worlds they decided to include in the game.
He then explains how the development team usually comes up with suggestions and propose various worlds, but for Tangled, they showed great determination and desire to have it in Kingdom Hearts III. They also liked Rapunzel’s strong personality, and the way she’s able to use her hair like a whip, which they thought would make for some great gameplay.
As far as other worlds we can expect to see, Nomura says that the Disney worlds in Kingdom Hearts III are mainly going to be newer areas that haven’t been experienced before, and they just had a meeting with Disney to talk about their next announcement. Nomura says that he was personally very surprised by it, and they may be announcing another world very soon.
As seen in the latest footage, Sora will have a new costume. According to Nomura, Sora’s costume from Kingdom Hearts II was very popular with the fans, so he was torn until the very last minute about whether he should keep that outfit, but in the end, he opted with something new since Kingdom Hearts III will be a proper numbered title. That, and the staff pushed for it.
Some fans felt that Sora looks more mature and have wondered if we will indeed see him with a bit more of a mature look in Kingdom Hearts III. On that subject, Nomura says that it may look like his proportions have changed, but the trailer shows him in Hercules’ world, and he’s actually wearing the Kingdom Hearts II outfit, so his skeletal structure is actually the same.
While he may look a little taller and have less wild hair, he’s still the same size, and his hair doesn’t look as wild due to having reduced the volume of it.
The latest trailer had all kinds of action going on, but Nomura says that they had so much material to incorporate, they weren’t able to fit in as much due to the limited length of the video. That said, there’s still a lot more to come, but this time, they went with more flashy and eye-catching moments.
We’ll hear more about Kingdom Hearts III at the D23 event later this year, and Square Enix would like to reveal more information this year, as they still have plenty of material that they couldn’t bring to E3.
Kingdom Hearts III is in development for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
