Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Kingdom Hearts III D23 Expo Trailer Analysis


Mundane bits first; the new trailer shows the return of Large Bodies and Shadows in Twilight Town, the traditional menu-based system of Kingdom Hearts I and II rather than BBS or 3D's command system, KHII's Munny sprite and a new basic combo for Sora. Like in Kingdom Hearts II he has a four-hit ground combo, but the fourth hit has been made into a gigantic ground-to-air overhead swing with a big lag window. The menu reads "Attack / Magic / Item / Summon." (The original KH menu had Summon in its own window with a context-sensitive fourth option where it is now, and II used this slot for Drive Forms.) Fire has also returned to being a homing fireball rather than forcefield as in II. Sora is again shown in his KHII outfit, but much like how early 3D previews showed Sora and Riku in their first game attire, I suspect this will change.


Most fan attention has been on Sora's new weapons, a pair of gold-and-blue firearms linked by a chain. These seem to be an extension of his Keyblade, comparable to the Keyblade Armor or Ultima Cannon used by Terra in BBS. The "Two Shoot Blaster" as the menu calls it seems to be related to fire magic, since they fire off two shots of fire with every attack. Possibly, this is a mechanic that lets you cast multiple copies of the same spell at once using the Keyblade. Note that Donald's MP was consumed when he cast spells in the video, but Sora's was not when using TSB. The TSB has its own gauge above the menu, it's basically identical to the Command Gauge of BBS. The Attack command was also highlighted throughout, meaning that the TSB probably uses the basic Attack command slot like Wisdom Shot did back in II.


The other feature of the trailer is the "attractions," which seem to function like summons or limit commands. These appear to be modeled on Disney rides, and with the electrical parade as a design motif. Based on the geography and skybox, the Pirate Ship attraction was still being used in Twilight Town. This got its own menu like a summon, with "Roll Splash" and "Jump Off" as options. Like TSB, the Pirate Ship had its own gauge. Sora was constantly swinging his Keyblade, implying that the cross button was being used, so Roll Splash was what was making the ship swing about and damage enemies. Donald and Goofy disappeared for this sequence, and that suggests that these attractions really are summons, like FFXIII's Eidolons.


The second attraction is Big Magic Mountain, a train summon that appears to be based on Big Thunder Mountain but has a name that could potentially get some flack from Six Flags. Commands were "Raid Ride" which used Strike Raid to attack the Rock Titan while riding the train, "Jump Dodge" and "Get Off." Jump Dodge may have been what launched the train at the Titan, as there was still time left on the summon gauge at the end. Donald and Goofy were present, but didn't attack or cast spells and seem to be decorative in the sequence. The arena the Titan was fought in seemed to be some kind of abstract boss area nowhere within the established parts of Greece or Realm of the Dead, but could conceivably be in Olympus because of the clouds below it. It seems that the presence of these new summons actually necessitates the enclosed arenas, because each attraction would need to be reworked around the particular boss--using these against a single enemy with a lot of choreographed motions and situation-specific responses is very different from just whipping out an entire ship against a mob of Heartless.


The EX Gauge from the previous trailer is still a part of the display, and the number next to it probably indicates that there are three stored EX Gauges, making it a Drive Gauge equivalent. However, neither the TSB nor the presumed summons in the trailer depleted it. Since these things have their own Gauges above the menu, the EX Gauge must be used for something else--potentially the return of Drive Forms and/or Limit Breaks.

Regarding the previous trailer, Sora and Donald's HP and MP gauges curve up instead of being straight lines, but given the shape of the "housing" on the gauges this doesn't seem to be an actual change in display design, but instead just higher levels for the demo. One thing that has changed is that the command menu does not have tabs anymore, and Summon has replaced ? so it seems like we won't have a second menu at all. The command menu is also a solid color now instead of being blue with black commands.


No comments:

Post a Comment