I figured that this might be an interesting topic as long as people don't take criticism of the game personally. With the amazing recent trailers of KH3, I've found one little concern with the game. I'm of the opinion that San Fransokyo ain't lookin' too good. There's a reasonable explanation for it, I believe.
It isn't through any shortage of developer skill that the BH6 world is visually and conceptually falling short of our collective imaginations. Square was able to make a fully realized Pirates world, a gorgeous Toy Story level, and well, everything actually looks great so far. But Big Hero 6's level is just too ambitious of a concept to look good or feel equal to the source material. It was never a feasible goal for SE to make a giant futuristic city level in Kingdom Hearts 3. The amount of development time it would take to make a game that looks even comparable to Big Hero 6 would be extremely inappropriate and take as much time as any single modern Triple A game.
So what we have on our hands are rooftops that look bland, streets that look bland, and objectives that honestly do not look very fun in my opinion. Once you create a giant empty city, I suppose Superman-64 style ring minigames are the next logical step, right? Flying around on Baymax is the obvious addition and was probably the first thing the development team thought of, but since the graphics and detail aren't there on the city, not even flying around on Baymax looks fun. The level design is the ultimate culprit for all the issues here. Character models and animation are top notch, and the story concept is also very cool. Graphics don't typically bother me, but this level is just standing out like a sore thumb compared to everything else in the game.
What's especially strange about this is that for the longest time, urban environments were easier to create in game engines, and organic environments were a lot harder to realistically create, but Square has completely knocked the organic settings out of the park, and it's this city that looks quite bad. Now, at the end of the day, I'm not even mad about this. SE set such a high bar, and decided on BH6's inclusion long before logistical problems reared their ugly head. Regardless of any dips in quality, I trust Nomura's judgment on keeping it in. I'm just sure that this is going to be the one level that fell short of everything else.
It isn't through any shortage of developer skill that the BH6 world is visually and conceptually falling short of our collective imaginations. Square was able to make a fully realized Pirates world, a gorgeous Toy Story level, and well, everything actually looks great so far. But Big Hero 6's level is just too ambitious of a concept to look good or feel equal to the source material. It was never a feasible goal for SE to make a giant futuristic city level in Kingdom Hearts 3. The amount of development time it would take to make a game that looks even comparable to Big Hero 6 would be extremely inappropriate and take as much time as any single modern Triple A game.
So what we have on our hands are rooftops that look bland, streets that look bland, and objectives that honestly do not look very fun in my opinion. Once you create a giant empty city, I suppose Superman-64 style ring minigames are the next logical step, right? Flying around on Baymax is the obvious addition and was probably the first thing the development team thought of, but since the graphics and detail aren't there on the city, not even flying around on Baymax looks fun. The level design is the ultimate culprit for all the issues here. Character models and animation are top notch, and the story concept is also very cool. Graphics don't typically bother me, but this level is just standing out like a sore thumb compared to everything else in the game.
What's especially strange about this is that for the longest time, urban environments were easier to create in game engines, and organic environments were a lot harder to realistically create, but Square has completely knocked the organic settings out of the park, and it's this city that looks quite bad. Now, at the end of the day, I'm not even mad about this. SE set such a high bar, and decided on BH6's inclusion long before logistical problems reared their ugly head. Regardless of any dips in quality, I trust Nomura's judgment on keeping it in. I'm just sure that this is going to be the one level that fell short of everything else.
