Thoughts and Prayers for Donald Duck.
I refuse to believe it, but Kingdom Hearts 3 is releasing soon. Next month soon.
Despite my disbelief, new trailers prove the title is nearing its debut, and the latest is the most notable yet. Check out the Final Battle trailer for Kingdom Hearts 3 below.
The trailer opens with some extremely Kingdom Hearts-y monologuing from Sora, which leads into the opening theme for the game “Face My Fears,” by series theme song artist Hikaru Utada AND Skrillex. What a world.
The beautiful theme accompanies a montage of scenes from the various Disney worlds in the game, my favorites being Tigger tackling Sora, the Stitch summon, Davy Jones boss fight, and BUZZ LIGHTYEAR BEING CONSUMED BY DARKNESS. To Infinity and Becoming a Xehanort!
This montage also sneaks in a pretty huge reveal: Riku is a playable character! We see him fight Heartless in the Realm of Darkness, probably searching for Aqua early in the game.
The gameplay montage transitions into a collection of cutscenes set to the game’s end theme “Don’t Think Twice,” also by Utada.
Highlights here include the most Xion-teasing we’ve seen in trailers yet (she appears cloaked and wielding the Kingdom Key a handful of times, usually accompanied by extremely erotic glances from Lea/Axel).
Hot Axel aside, one of the more notable aspects of the trailer is the scene beginning at three-minute mark. Here we see Donald seemingly taken out, followed with a flurry of Shadow Heartless attacking Mickey, Kairi, Lea, Goofy, and Riku.
What follows is a moment I wish wasn’t shown in the trailer. Sora, on his knees, throws up his hands and screams in despair.
It’s a powerful moment, especially considering we’ve never seen Sora in this kind of agony before. Why is he so distraught? What happened?
We’re going to have to wait to find out, just a little bit longer.
Kingdom Hearts 3 comes to PS4 and Xbox One on January 29.
ALSO!
The trailer ends with a very intense tease for a new world called Scala ad Caelum, where Master Xehanort and his new Organization XIII (in sharp-looking armor) reign. It sounds like Mark Hamill will be replacing the late great Leonard Nimoy as Master Xehanort, and while it’s definitely not the same, it’s still awesome to hear a gravely Hamill.
And this world looks awesome!
