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News ► Nomura Promises More Worlds and no Season Pass in Game Informer Interview



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DarkosOverlord

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I really hope Nomura isn't being secretive about the other playable character only for it to end up being Riku again. If Riku isn't the only other playable character then that's fine, but if he is then that's not really anything new.

The biggest highlight for me was he mentioning segments in which you play as someone else: I still hope this means that instead of a long burst with a different character we get shorter sequences with multiple ones.
 

Launchpad

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Making another playable character, even one, is a ghastly amount of work. The current team clearly doesn't have the best grasp imaginable on polished gameplay and are only now starting to make Sora fun to play.

I'm going to be annoyed seeing "only Sora" complaints, because these are the complaints of consumers who care less about game feel and just want faux variety. If we get to play as Riku, Kairi, Lea, etc, what fundamentally changes in the game? The devs would need to create new dynamic animations for every character. New attraction animations, new transformation animations, ground combos, air combos, climbing, swimming, flowmotion... It's a lot to test, and time is finite. Why put in all that work when you could push Sora's mechanics to the peak of perfection? Your favorite characters are playable in other games. The mechanically maligned ones that people didn't enjoy.
 

Ballad of Caius

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Making another playable character, even one, is a ghastly amount of work. The current team clearly doesn't have the best grasp imaginable on polished gameplay and are only now starting to make Sora fun to play.

I'm going to be annoyed seeing "only Sora" complaints, because these are the complaints of consumers who care less about game feel and just want faux variety. If we get to play as Riku, Kairi, Lea, etc, what fundamentally changes in the game? The devs would need to create new dynamic animations for every character. New attraction animations, new transformation animations, ground combos, air combos, climbing, swimming, flowmotion... It's a lot to test, and time is finite. Why put in all that work when you could push Sora's mechanics to the peak of perfection? Your favorite characters are playable in other games. The mechanically maligned ones that people didn't enjoy.

I'm with Launchpad here. Though I think Nomura could be hinting at the encounter between the Lights and Darks, where each Light gets a Nort assigned, and we can play as them.
 

kingsoraful

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Guys can someone help me out here, where's the page of the dialogue that a VA for Kairi says about Axel always looking at her sometimes cause she reminds him of someone else?

What's the actual dialogue.
 

gosoxtim

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I'm with Launchpad here. Though I think Nomura could be hinting at the encounter between the Lights and Darks, where each Light gets a Nort assigned, and we can play as them.
that could be awesome it coule explain why kairi has no keyblade in her render
 

gosoxtim

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Guys can someone help me out here, where's the page of the dialogue that a VA for Kairi says about Axel always looking at her sometimes cause she reminds him of someone else?

What's the actual dialogue.
Kairi:

I didn't notify you but you might've already heard from Yen Sid-sama.
I've come to train to become a Keyblade wielder.
Until now, I've only been waiting for you guys to come back from your journey.
Maybe with this I can at least help out a little.


The magician Merlin-sama can use magic that surpasses time.
Here, we can forget about the flow of time.
Isn't it great?


Lea's training with me.
He apologized to me over and over again.
It's alright,
I'd say,
But he'd keep on apologizing...


At first I was a bit scared but
As we trained together we started talking to each other.
I found out Lea also has a best friend he wants to save.
I felt like, he's not a person that I can bring myself to hate...


Sometimes..... He'd stare at my face
So I'd ask him, what's wrong?
"I don't know, but I feel like it's something I must recall", He'd say...


Your journey is a journey that will help many people
and the people you'll meet from now on
I have a feeling these people you meet will also need your help


The journey might be hard but
Please stay as the cheerful and bright Sora I know
Because your smile, will save many hearts.....


*end*

(credit Exclusive canon back story for Kingdom Hearts III shown at Kingdom Hearts Orchestra - World Tour - in Japan - Kingdom Hearts News - KH13.com - KH13.com, for Kingdom Hearts)
 

DarkosOverlord

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Making another playable character, even one, is a ghastly amount of work. The current team clearly doesn't have the best grasp imaginable on polished gameplay and are only now starting to make Sora fun to play.

I'm going to be annoyed seeing "only Sora" complaints, because these are the complaints of consumers who care less about game feel and just want faux variety. If we get to play as Riku, Kairi, Lea, etc, what fundamentally changes in the game? The devs would need to create new dynamic animations for every character. New attraction animations, new transformation animations, ground combos, air combos, climbing, swimming, flowmotion... It's a lot to test, and time is finite. Why put in all that work when you could push Sora's mechanics to the peak of perfection? Your favorite characters are playable in other games. The mechanically maligned ones that people didn't enjoy.

Maybe I don't want faux variety, and at the same time I don't need additional characters to do EVERYTHING Sora does.
Give me a Riku with dark powers Sora couldn't have, a Kairi who plays in a different way (more of a ranged fighter perhaps), and I couldn't care less about them having attraction flows, twenty different transformations or even all the basic combos: even just a handful of combat options and a single unique boss fight would be enough for me to say "okay, at least this isn't just Sora's story and other characters MATTER and they're doing something".
I couldn't care less about making Kairi able to climb walls, but you gave her a Keyblade? Make me use it. ONCE.
So, definitely not just Riku's three commands during Final Xemnas, but also not an entirely new "Sora" in terms of gameplay: an inbetween solution isn't exactly unheard of and some games managed to pull it off decently well.

Like, in these past months I've been all about making the game smoother and valorizing gameplay, but let's not deifying it now. Kingdom Hearts is still also a big emotional trip and a story needing to be told, I don't see anything wrong in wanting to play with more characters since it's a series that doesn't have just one protagonist, even if they don't reach top-notch quality gameplay, I'm willing to accept the trade-off. Especially given many characters were playable in bad games.
And Kairi playable in none.
 
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Launchpad

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Maybe I don't want faux variety, and at the same time I don't need additional characters to do EVERYTHING Sora does.
Give me a Riku with dark powers Sora couldn't have, a Kairi who plays in a different way (more of a ranged fighter perhaps), and I couldn't care less about them having attraction flows, twenty different transformations or even all the basic combos: even just a handful of combat options and a single unique boss fight would be enough for me to say "okay, at least this isn't just Sora's story and other characters MATTER and they're doing something".
I couldn't care less about making Kairi able to climb walls, but you gave her a Keyblade? Make me use it. ONCE.
So, definitely not just Riku's three commands during Final Xemnas, but also not an entirely new "Sora" in terms of gameplay: an inbetween solution isn't exactly unheard of and some games managed to pull it off decently well.

Like, in these past months I've been all about making the game smoother and valorizing gameplay, but let's not deifying it now. Kingdom Hearts is still also a big emotional trip and a story needing to be told, I don't see anything wrong in wanting to play with more characters since it's a series that doesn't have just one protagonist, even if they don't reach top-notch quality gameplay, I'm willing to accept the trade-off. Especially given many characters were playable in bad games.
And Kairi playable in none.

Just because you aren't necessarily playing AS a character doesn't mean their moment is ruined. Cutscenes go a long way with characters; fan favorite Axel has been playable in one game and relegated to cinematics in all others.

End game bosses should test the skills you've practiced, not ditching them for completely new ones. Having Sora and Kairi team up against a Nort goes way further to benefit story and gameplay. A 2v1 where Sora and Kairi sync up to use boss specific limits is way more hype than putting the main character on the sidelines and making the boss essentially a set difficulty gimmick fight.

KH2 did this perfectly in it's final battles. Fighting with Riku as a partner is 1000x cooler than just becoming Riku. Same goes for teaming up with Axel, all the FF characters... Seeing how they can assist SORA, the main character, is much better than taking everything away.
 

dianted

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Maybe I don't want faux variety, and at the same time I don't need additional characters to do EVERYTHING Sora does.
Give me a Riku with dark powers Sora couldn't have, a Kairi who plays in a different way (more of a ranged fighter perhaps), and I couldn't care less about them having attraction flows, twenty different transformations or even all the basic combos: even just a handful of combat options and a single unique boss fight would be enough for me to say "okay, at least this isn't just Sora's story and other characters MATTER and they're doing something".
I couldn't care less about making Kairi able to climb walls, but you gave her a Keyblade? Make me use it. ONCE.
So, definitely not just Riku's three commands during Final Xemnas, but also not an entirely new "Sora" in terms of gameplay: an inbetween solution isn't exactly unheard of and some games managed to pull it off decently well.

Like, in these past months I've been all about making the game smoother and valorizing gameplay, but let's not deifying it now. Kingdom Hearts is still also a big emotional trip and a story needing to be told, I don't see anything wrong in wanting to play with more characters since it's a series that doesn't have just one protagonist, even if they don't reach top-notch quality gameplay, I'm willing to accept the trade-off. Especially given many characters were playable in bad games.
And Kairi playable in none.

I highly agree with this. Whether it be a tutorial character, an hour or so segment where a character is off doing their own thing, or just the final boss(es) where we get to rotate between characters, I feel like it's important to have more than one character experienced. While Sora is the main character, this is many different characters' stories being told. Especially for a character like Kairi who hasn't been playable before, I feel like it'd add to the gameplay and story. Even Mickey could have a ten minute playable segment and I'd be fine with that just because it's new and exciting and I feel like KH3 is the perfect time to do new and fun things.

Sora teaming up with other characters would be cool as well, but I feel like moments where you switch to a different character, like the Ellie moment in TLoU, are very creative and interesting and offer something different.
 

Ranma

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Making another playable character, even one, is a ghastly amount of work. The current team clearly doesn't have the best grasp imaginable on polished gameplay and are only now starting to make Sora fun to play.

I'm going to be annoyed seeing "only Sora" complaints, because these are the complaints of consumers who care less about game feel and just want faux variety. If we get to play as Riku, Kairi, Lea, etc, what fundamentally changes in the game? The devs would need to create new dynamic animations for every character. New attraction animations, new transformation animations, ground combos, air combos, climbing, swimming, flowmotion... It's a lot to test, and time is finite. Why put in all that work when you could push Sora's mechanics to the peak of perfection? Your favorite characters are playable in other games. The mechanically maligned ones that people didn't enjoy.

I think segments where you temporarily play as another character would work more like Riku from the Final Xemnas fight, rather than Roxas from the prologue. I expect a very limited amount of actions and only very specific battles. Riku couldn't use forms, growth abilities, summons, combo modifiers, etc. I wouldn't expect other characters to need to be able to have transformations, attraction flow, flowmotion or even the ability to swim. Roxas in KH2, too, can acquire basic abilities such as Aerial recovery.. but he never needed to have the swimming animations Sora had in Atlantica.

Basically, we don't know the situations and in what capacity these other characters will be playable. As far as we know, these characters will already be party members at one point and will require less additional work to make them playable. Hell, this may lead to multiplayer.
 

Sephiroth0812

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Despite otherwise claims KH isn't just Sora's story alone, Nomura himself acknowledged that when he spoke about how many characters and their own problems and stories are to address.

KH II was the worst in the aspect of highlighting the other character's stories and experiences by delegating more than 80% of them behind the scenes, a thing that gets painfully blatant when you delve into the KH 2 novels once.

Having characters represented in cutscenes and more focus shifts (like DDD did between worlds) is certainly a step up on this, but there's also the factor of Sora feeling ridiculously overpowered and being given every available agency (from the audience's view) if it is always solely him playable.
Like i.e. Ansem SoD is a sort of Riku's personal enemy/nemesis, Master Xehanort is Terra's and/or Mickeys, Vanitas is Ventus' and so on.

It just doesn't have the same impact nor the narrative and emotional connection if it is just Sora fighting them in a sort of proxy role.

With Larxene being apparently after pure hearts and considering her past treatment of Naminé she could be build up to be a good personal enemy for Kairi (their personalities also clash quite a bit) and binding all this together could be an actual good display of things being done in actual teamwork and not delegate the other characters to just cannon fodder or stalling for time extras who have to wait for Sora and his superpowers to arrive to get anything done.
 

Rydgea

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I'll be honest, even just a measily, cheeseball triangle-mashing reaction command trade-off among all seven guardians in the final battle would be enough to make me fangasm~ I'm hoping that we assume actual control though, however much of a stretch that is...

* * *

Man, Nomura is trooolling us hard. I can see it now. He is pulling directly from Monsters Inc., canning the wailing and moaning from the souls all over the globe assuming we aren't getting new FF characters and snuggling them for sweet sustenance post-interviews. And, like, how daft does he think we are? That we think he's that daft that we'd be surprised by a Frozen world, considering is toxic explosiveness in both US and Japan markets. No, sir, Mr. Nomura. You'll not get my goat, you silly man.
 

FudgemintGuardian

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Maybe I don't want faux variety, and at the same time I don't need additional characters to do EVERYTHING Sora does.
Give me a Riku with dark powers Sora couldn't have, a Kairi who plays in a different way (more of a ranged fighter perhaps), and I couldn't care less about them having attraction flows, twenty different transformations or even all the basic combos: even just a handful of combat options and a single unique boss fight would be enough for me to say "okay, at least this isn't just Sora's story and other characters MATTER and they're doing something".
I couldn't care less about making Kairi able to climb walls, but you gave her a Keyblade? Make me use it. ONCE.
So, definitely not just Riku's three commands during Final Xemnas, but also not an entirely new "Sora" in terms of gameplay: an inbetween solution isn't exactly unheard of and some games managed to pull it off decently well.
This just made me think on Riku's new Keyblade. A big spank paddle like that would have a completely different fighting style from what he's used to.
 

Sephiroth0812

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This just made me think on Riku's new Keyblade. A big spank paddle like that would have a completely different fighting style from what he's used to.

Pfft, we should start a petition to rename Riku's new Keyblade into "Spank paddle" and everytime he hits something with it there's a distinct "DOINK" sound.
 

Luminary

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Seeing as it was at one point a playable section of KH3, I still believe the other playable characters will be akin to Aqua in .2. They’ll already be at a certain level and each will have a set few unique spells and a style change. They’ll all feel different and have unique traversal techniques, but it won’t be that difficult to get accustomed to. They won’t have near the complexity as progressive as Sora.

I like the idea of Kairi being a ranged fighter. Let her Keyblade transform into a recurve bow.
 

DarkosOverlord

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Just because you aren't necessarily playing AS a character doesn't mean their moment is ruined. Cutscenes go a long way with characters; fan favorite Axel has been playable in one game and relegated to cinematics in all others.

I'd say there's a gigantic *despite* hidden there.
But I can just twist this around: just because a non-playable character won't necessarily suck or feel useless doesn't mean you can't try to make them even more part of the action, nor that doing so will ruin them or the game.
Fandom-hated Kairi has been relegated to cardboard cutout since Chain of Memories and she has as many enemies as fans (if not more) and she embodies the definition of useless in many people's minds.

And yes, I agree you can make her better also by just writing her better, but you gave her a weapon, a combat weapon. One that very important people wield in the game where those very same vips are going to duke it out in a big clash. I'd say this makes her case a tad different than Axel's development throughout the series and justifies her fighting an enemy or two.

End game bosses should test the skills you've practiced, not ditching them for completely new ones. Having Sora and Kairi team up against a Nort goes way further to benefit story and gameplay. A 2v1 where Sora and Kairi sync up to use boss specific limits is way more hype than putting the main character on the sidelines and making the boss essentially a set difficulty gimmick fight.

Oh, I seriously doubt this would go full circle and put Sora in the sidelines, nor it should. Have Sora do something throughout the entire story (and that's pretty much a given just by having the game unfold), and at the same time have other people doing equally important stuff. Just the supposed darknesses are thirteen so almost double of the supposed lights, I'm sure we can have different fights without the good guys going on coffee breaks.
I don't think the entire concept/experience of endgame bosses will be ditched if one or two are "sacrificed" for storytelling: Kairi fights Larxene at the very end in a show-off fight, and that's a missed chance for developing your Sora techs? Just rummage through the Barrel-O-Norts and pick another one out of the eleven dudes to give Sora that testing skills fight.


KH2 did this perfectly in it's final battles. Fighting with Riku as a partner is 1000x cooler than just becoming Riku. Same goes for teaming up with Axel, all the FF characters... Seeing how they can assist SORA, the main character, is much better than taking everything away.

That's, like, your opinion man.
Personally I'm a bit sick and tired of people doing stuff for Sora, to Sora and out of Sora. Ally Riku didn't give me any hype after the first 5 minutes of having a Keyblade-wielding ally, and in the subsequent 11 years of playthroughs I so wished I could control such wielder.

Also man you phrased that like the other characters should be honored to even be of use to Sora, and if they dare taking something for themselves they're putting his main character privileges at risk.
Personally I find the "oh no, weird cards/a strong gust of wind/Xemnas magic/a building is preventing us from taking action, it's all on you Sora" in KH II kinda silly and some old trope we should move away from. I understand that in KH II times the brief Riku moments were the best you could offer without destroying the gameplay experience, but we have way better tools nowadays and I think it's time to have stories about friendship actually mean the message they bring and not a glorification of the perfect fearless main character.

This just made me think on Riku's new Keyblade. A big spank paddle like that would have a completely different fighting style from what he's used to.

It's always nice that Fudge reminds us what's really important in life.
Riku will spank all dem youngsters

I demand his transformation should be called "That's a Paddlin'"
EDIT:

KH II was the worst in the aspect of highlighting the other character's stories and experiences by delegating more than 80% of them behind the scenes, a thing that gets painfully blatant when you delve into the KH 2 novels once.

Having characters represented in cutscenes and more focus shifts (like DDD did between worlds) is certainly a step up on this, but there's also the factor of Sora feeling ridiculously overpowered and being given every available agency (from the audience's view) if it is always solely him playable.
Like i.e. Ansem SoD is a sort of Riku's personal enemy/nemesis, Master Xehanort is Terra's and/or Mickeys, Vanitas is Ventus' and so on.

It just doesn't have the same impact nor the narrative and emotional connection if it is just Sora fighting them in a sort of proxy role.

This too. Again, I think narrative impact should get as much loving care as the gameplay, and that's just not happening in the supposed story-ender KH III if it's just the "Sora&pals who are kinda there" show.
 
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Launchpad

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Man, I dislike KH2's gimmick fights more than most people. I just want a consistent quality challenge, and everything I know about this series tells me that character switching leads to poor quality gameplay.
 

DarkosOverlord

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Man, I dislike KH2's gimmick fights more than most people. I just want a consistent quality challenge, and everything I know about this series tells me that character switching leads to poor quality gameplay.

Hey, and just to clarify, I hear you.
I don't want you to have an overall bad experience with this title, and I generally agree with your concerns.
I think the divisive factor here is that I don't feel like you have to entirely switch leads for giving secondary characters the spotlight, and it can be done with a few fights to goof around with on the sidelines.

If I came out too harsh or dismissive I apologize. I try to use humor to diffuse the situation, but I know it can quickly make me into a sarcastic prick.
 

Ballad of Caius

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Everyone here has a point. Relegating every single Nort to Sora would be underwhelming and anticlimatic. But at the same time, these sort of interchangeable character mechanics haven't worked so well on the series, and we don't want any hiccups during the series' finale. But I feel that if, maybe, if they can pull very unique experiences between worlds, especially how ambitious the Caribbean seems to be, it's possible they can pull a Light Vs. Dark encounter where you can fight with different characters, and each one has his own style.
 
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