What We Should Be Doing While We Wait For Kingdom Hearts 3

Kingdom Hearts 3 is one of the most anticipated games at the moment, with rumours first appearing about this sequel back in 2006. When we got a teaser trailer at 2013 E3 it felt like the wait was nearly over, but that may not be the case.

In a recent talk with OPM UK Tetsyua Nomura said: “For the most part we have established the ground foundations, like the basic systems and mechanics of what’s going to go in to the game. Development of that is pretty much complete. It’s now building the resources, and development of the ‘mass’ elements of it.”

Nomura added: “Other elements, including mini-games and other various smaller items; their progress is vary varied… some of them are polished and very close to final state but at the same time some elements are in the planning phase.”

This suggests that there is still quite a bit of work to do. Rumours state they still want to add an online aspect to the game as well as with Nomura working on Final Fantasy 15 which is expected to come out next year, I wouldn’t be surprised if we have to wait at least another three years until we see Kingdom Hearts 3 on the shelves. So maybe we can use this time to prepare ourselves as although Kingdom Hearts has all the marks of a children’s game the story is so complex that even being a 20 year old I had to read explanations, and I’m still not sure I understand it all.

One things first, if you have only played 1 and 2 then you’re going to need to spend this time playing the spin-offs with Birth by Sleep and Dream Drop Distance being a necessity. Unlike most tie-ins, these hold major sections of the plot and if you skip these when you get around to playing Kingdom Hearts 3 you are going to be more than just confused. The series got in to much more depth after the first two ‘major’ titles, explaining some of parts of the story while creating more questions, until wondering why Donald wears a top but not trousers was the least of our worries.

Fortunately the guys at Square Enix realised not everyone had all the various consoles, so released the Kingdom Hearts remixes for the ps3, and kindly reduced the weaker titles to just scenes. Though to play Dream Drop Distance your still going to need to pick up a 3ds as this is not part of the collections. Once you have played them all you will be able to join the rest of us in trying to make sense of everything, now go you’ll be thankful after.

The Kingdom Hearts plot got increasingly more complicated in each game, but the chances are unless you have played the remixes, you have probably forgotten many parts of the story. It seems so long ago when I actually cared about who Xion was or trying to fit the events of Birth by Sleep in to my mental time line of the Kingdom Hearts story. The problem is there is an illusion around the game, having Disney characters and the traditional children messages that friendship always prevails, leads to the player thinking the story is simple but as soon as they stop concentrating for just a second they miss the hidden layers of plot.

One thing that was evident from the spin-offs was that this is not the story of Sora it is about Xehanort. Sora maybe the main protagonist who is fundamental to the story but it is Xehanort who has masterminded all of the events up until now, yet if you’ve skipped the spin-offs you hardly know of his importance. There is nothing wrong with having a complex story as it makes it much more interesting and gives the player a greater desire to play the series in an attempt to try and piece the story together. It’s just to fully appreciate the story you have to have all the information and the fact a lot of the story is built up for latter instalments, makes it harder to clarify what your meant to know and what will be explained latter.

Now I’m sure there are people who get the story instantly or don’t care enough to know it in depth, but for those who can’t even watch at a Disney film without looking for any clues to the Kingdom Hearts story maybe you should replay the games to refresh your memories, who knows this time you might see something you missed the first four times. We all just need to be ready for the last instalment in this saga. If there is one thing for sure its that Kingdom Hearts 3 will be just a complicated as the others and if you want any chance of understanding it the first time round you’re going to need to know the story inside out.