Some More Early Kingdom Hearts III Footage

I don't know why they'd release this footage publicly. Obviously, they're banking on the fact that it'll keep fans excited, but surely the lame criticism from people who refuse to read the words "in development" will be as significant a reaction. Did we really need to know that at some point in the game you might possibly have to fight the Hercules rock titan (who I killed in KH1, natch) if the next two years of development goes exactly according to plan? Seems like this'll do more harm than good for early impressions, unless new video gets released every couple of months or something.

I know it won't happen but I want the end boss to be Ronald McDonald.

Damn this looks freaking amazing.

@alexgbro: Definitely. Like I said, I think this was made for PS3 initially and this is just what they have been able to add so far. I'm sure other improvements will be made over the next year or two. That said, this is almost certainly running on the FF15 engine which is itself a modified version of the Crystal Tools engine which is nearly decade old tech now, so I doubt it will ever look super technically advanced. But for a game like Kingdom Hearts it doesn't really have to. Some high quality textures and great animation are really all that is needed beyond what they showed here. We've seen some destructibility in the FF15 trailer, so we know the engine supports that type of stuff. I'm sure it will be a good looking game, but I'm still interested in seeing a game running on the engine they showed off at the PS4 reveal.

Seconded.

CRITICISM GUYS NUMBER 1 THING WE LOVE TO DO THESE DAYS BE CRITICAL AMIRITE?!!11

but for reals, i get what the op is saying, the art style is strong enough that more polygons fleshes it out more but generally speaking it looks like a kingdom hearts game,

Donald is so content, even while the train is diving into the gullet of a giant animate rock.

Looked like criticism, and with the internet being the internet, immediately thought the worst. Anyways, I think it's great that they have a style that can last and still look good. It's part of what makes the series so well loved.

And this is what people lost their shit over at E3? Wow. And I actually like the original Kingdom Hearts, but I can't think of any franchises that are more overrated while still being safe for nerds to enjoy (as opposed to CoD, Halo).

I actually like seeing early development footage, it shows they are at least doing something with the KH series. Regardless of how weird the stories for the games have been, the combat is still fun and some of the back stories for characters are cool to find out. I wonder if KHinsider is still online. Ah good times.

@raven10: Namura said it is early in development so the final game could/ will look better than this trailer, i think we will learn more in 2014, I expect a 2016 date

There are elements of this that don't look all that great (the flatness of the background textures sticks out to me) but the quality of the character models, real time lighting, and excessive particle effects are all miles ahead of anything either the PS2 or PS3 could do. I'm not saying this looks as good as some of the next gen games, but people saying this looks like a PS3 (or even PS2) game are crazy. It's not the best looking next gen game but there are very obvious signs of next gen elements. I assume they started working on this on PS3 and are moving to next gen. As such this video shows a lot of the improvements they have made since that switch but doesn't look nearly as next gen as some games.

Why does the combat system not look like the ones in BBS and 3D? That combat system alone is the reason BBS is my favorite KH to date. (Well, the not-as-ridiculous plot helped too).

definitely. That first area where they fight and hes using the pirate ship is the exact same area of Twilight Town from KH2, towards the back of the area if you come in from the ramp near the shop, i think. Its probably like "heres this area from the old game, now heres how it will look in the new one."

So you have summons that are like weird Disney World rides or something?

I would apologize for the entire series.... but then each of these games hints at least one of my favorite films and then it's just stiff to play and sit through alien scenes that are suppose to be "childlike and innocent".

I wasn't talking shit about the game to begin with. That's why the super defensive are making me laugh.

How would you make it more modern? Chest high walls and a healthy smattering of brown? I'm glad they're sticking to their art style. If they weren't improving the graphics, then I'd be concerned.

Take notes Nintendo. This game is nowhere near done and more of it has been seen than that new Zelda game for the Wii U.

God..I can't wait!!..XD

You can't really push that art style very far. If you start going down the path of doing things like giving Donald hi res (realistic looking) feather textures or Mickey fur textures or whatever it's just not going to look off. The Nomura style clothing that some characters wear might seem off but they're not going to start giving Sora or any of the human Disney characters hi-res realistic looking skin textures or individual strains of hair or anything like that.

It's similar to anime based games like DBZ or Naruto, ie you might hear people say "Oh man can you imagine what a DBZ game would look like on next gen consoles?" but honestly, it's going to look the same as the last 10 DBZ games if they're still using the same Toriyama art style. The style is far too simplistic to do anything jaw dropping with at this point.

You'd need to give it (whether it's KH or DBZ or whatever) some sort of artistic overhaul in order to do that, but then you get the territory of is that something people even want to see, or are there enough people that want to see it that way to justify doing it? Personally I'm all for it, but it's unlikely you'll see stuff like that happen.

Exactly this was made in probably a couple of weeks with a first pass of the character models (possibly just retouched versions of the old models), lighting, gameplay etc. All it was for was to start ramping up the hype for the next Kingdom Hearts which definitely worked for me.

Hearing those music tracks just makes we want to play the first two games again. At least it looks pretty.

Super-early stuff. Opinions shouldn't even be allowed to form yet.

They probably just threw this together to ensure the fans that they -are- working on it, so they can get off their backs.

It's almost guaranteed that basically everything will look completely different in the finished game.

Sora´s old outfit from KH2, for example, is a dead giveaway.

Did I see Sora duel wielding Gummi guns?

Yeeeees!!!

Get used to it. Haha. Launch games are usually only marginally better, save for a few first part games.

@jamesjeux007 said:

Yeah, I've heard good things about the gameplay and I can believe them, but I have qualms with the style and story, and there are plenty of other games for me to play where I don't think I will have those same qualms, so I continue to play those and I'm pretty fine with never partaking in KH.

Having finished the HD Remake of the first game recently, I do agree that the ridiculous Nomura Chara design really is a low-point of the series (although the first game does escape that since it has very little original characters compared to the other entries in the franchise). However, what I personally liked at the time and still loved when I replayed it is the gameplay. Yeah, the story is really silly, and so far up its own ass for its own good (again, the first game escapes that somewhat) but the environments look really good, the soundtrack is fantastic and the combat feels really good and way less repetitive that you might think for a game where you basically have to mash X the whole time.

Just saying, the KH series isn't just "Disney meets Final Fantasy". If you can't get past that, it's a shame because there is much more to appreciate but to each their own :')

Yes. How difficult is that to really understand? This one's prettier, but not by much because of the art style they chose 10 or more years ago. It was perfect for the time, and has barely improved.

Kingdom Hearts III on PS4 looks the same as Kingdom Hearts I on PS2?

@stevesonaplane said:

I don't know that the age matters, so much as the part where this series started when Final Fantasy was still a really big deal, and some of the Disney movies involved were actually still quite recent.

But yeah, the whole thing seems antiquated at this point. Though I agree, character designs such as Sora's have always looked terrible, because he is basically just a Nomura FF character with Mickey shoes and a Disney colour palette, and the combination looks hideous.

If Squeenix had any sense, they'd make it for PS3 (and Wii U) as well.

Gonna be awhile sadly :(

It may be less jagged now and all that, but it looks the same. I saw the recent trailers for the HD Remixes.

Now this google doc is gonna get even longer.

I'm guessing most fans of this game were in elementary school when the first one's came out, cause I seriously do not see the appeal. Horrible character design, repetitive gameplay and a convoluted story. Right?

Oh, boy. You haven't seen Kingdom Hearts in a while, have you? You should definitely go back and look at it again.

Well, the amount of individual lights that are being rendered do look pretty nice. I dont think current gen could pull that of. But its nothing too spectacular.

Early PS4 will look no different than PS3 games, they'll just run a little smoother.

People saying this looks like a PS2 game/HD re-release either have poor memories or poor eyesight. The polygon count on the models and lighting are both obviously significantly improved.

But man, I can't wait to see what convoluted bullshit plot gets added this time when this releases in 2015/16!

Very early stuff here, considering how early this seams to be the game will probably look amazing, DX13 would be cool.

This is just a proof of concept running on PS3 hardware, right? Because it doesn't look any different from the HD releases.

Generally, that footage was pretty pointless. Although, I do think that the notion of summoning and fighting with amusement park rides is actually kind of cool.

@biomajor09: You need to understand how early in development this game really is.

So, like, 3 more years then?

looks like a really fancy ps2 game

This game looks incredible.