I’m gonna wreck it! (If this game doesn’t come out this year!)
Late last week, Square Enix held the Kingdom Hearts III Premiere Event in Santa Monica, California, where press and influencers finally got their hands on the long awaited title. Since then, footage and screenshots of the playable demos at the event were revealed, so here’s what we learned.
The Premiere Event had two demos: one set on Olympus Coliseum where Sora, Donald, and Goofy fought the Rock Titan, and one set on the Toy Story world (now officially called Toy Box), which featured various segments and battle scenarios.
While we’ve seen each of those worlds before via trailers, one of the biggest reveals from the event was that Ralph of Wreck-it-Ralph fame is a summon character! Once Sora calls upon him, Ralph puts Sora on his shoulders and the player can then set blocks down that will stun or trap enemies, while then controlling Ralph to smash them away. And that’s right: there’s a video game character from a movie about video games inside a video game about movies inside a video game. Kingdom Hearts 3: Ralph-ception.
My favorite things revealed from the Premiere Event though were the details. Toy Box is huge; with one area of the world being a giant three-story toy store where you can grind rail around or hop in a toy mech to take on Heartless. The overworld theme in Toy Box is also the melody of “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” so I have no idea how I’m going to be able to play more than few minutes without crying.
The most surprising thing about the event though is just how far along Kingdom Hearts 3 seems to be. The demos featured complete in-engine cutscenes with localized (!) voice acting (link to the cutscenes here). (Tom Hanks is not voicing Woody, but I’m pretty sure Tim Allen is doing Buzz!) The game looks polished and runs very well, especially when you consider how much is going on during battles.
Sure, these demos were specific vertical slices of the game, but it really does seem like it is coming out soon (we’ll know the release date at E3), and I still can’t believe it.
Kingdom Hearts 3 comes to PS4 and Xbox One this year.
