Hey, guys. I noticed a couple of things that I haven't seen many people bring up about the Kingdom Hearts III trailers lately, and, being the type of analyst I am, I watched every trailer from E3 2015 - on and analyzed the gameplay to discover what new stuff has been revealed so far.
Do keep in mind that this list is mostly in chronological order for each trailer, meaning that each thing was written down as I was watching these. This means that similar topics might not be listed right next to each other under each topic, but will still be included. I also did not bother to mention stuff that was revealed after E3 2015 in 0.2; there was just no point to writing it.
Without further ado, here is what I noticed from each trailer!
Notes from Kingdom Hearts III E3 2015 trailer:
Notes from KINGDOM HEARTS III – Jump Festa 2015 Excerpt:
Notes from Kingdom Hearts III Orchestra Trailer:
Notes from D23 2017 Trailer Excerpt – Hercules:
Notes from D23 2017 Toy Story trailer:
Notes from d23 Expo Japan 2018 Monsters Inc. trailer:
Notes from KINGDOM HEARTS III Theme Song Trailer – “Don’t Think Twice†by Hikaru Utada:
This list will be updated with each new trailer and eventually compiled into sections, similar to Audo's thread, of things we know about the game. For any future moderators looking at this thread, I do apologize if you notice this, but if two updates happen close to each other or the thread becomes mostly inactive except for my bumps to let people know of new ipdates, I will have to double post from time to time.
Hope you guys found this informative! Was there anything you didn't know of before, or something you noticed that you've been dying for someone else to bring up? Whatever it was, comment below and let me know ~U~
~Many thanks to:
Oracle Spockanort - cleaned up presentation
Chaser - confirmed that the "movement flowmotion" as I said earlier was actually called "athletic flow"
KH2Rulz - Gave me plenty of extra modifications to my original article, including Dodge Cancelling and movement command changes.
Sora2016 - observed that Hercules doesn't appear as a party member fighting the Rock Titan.
Do keep in mind that this list is mostly in chronological order for each trailer, meaning that each thing was written down as I was watching these. This means that similar topics might not be listed right next to each other under each topic, but will still be included. I also did not bother to mention stuff that was revealed after E3 2015 in 0.2; there was just no point to writing it.
Without further ado, here is what I noticed from each trailer!
Notes from Kingdom Hearts III E3 2015 trailer:
- The first thing we notice in the gameplay is Sora’s athletic flow. When he approaches a rock, he climbs up the rock and continues to run, with the Athletic Flow capability being signified by a sparkle on the object. This is also shown when Sora steps on a pole sticking out of the nearby stream, on another tall stone, parkouring over a ledge, jumping over some pointed rocks to clear a gap, a large stone that appears next to the grounded horned heartless that can be climbed, and on the large wall Sora climbs to fight the Rock Titan. A version of this might also appear when Sora slips down a large hill and does a spin towards the end of it.
- Heartless are shown interacting with the environment. When Sora clears the tall stone, four water-heartless (later called water cores in 0.2) appear from the water and ready for battle.
- Dodge roll is shown to return to KHIII, as expected. Double jump returns as well. Guard returns during a ranged attack by the rock titan that appears to exert some sort of radius similar to the one created by large bodies.
- Here is where some speculation can begin to occur – since water is now an established element of these heartless, could water be a spell that could be implemented into the final game? This will further be speculated later.
- Two new keyblades that will be recurring objects first appeared in full through these trailers. These are going to be called the not-star seeker and the new Olympus keyblade.
- Several new heartless appear in this trailer: a flying heartless with a Greek armor/plague doctor theme, a group of armored heartless with some sort of horned instrument that appear to charge and knock Goofy flying, a dandelion heartless that can spread itself into “seeds†one time, weaker versions of itself without the power to reproduce, and an archer heartless with a red hat that is grounded.
- Sora jumps off a cliff in this trailer, showing the vast expanse of this land in this game. This is similar to scope from Dream Drop Distance, yet seems more lively.
- It appears that Limits of some sort will be appearing, first shown when Goofy invites Donald and Sora into a group attack to shield off and break up the group of horned heartless.
- Flowmotion appears to be further explored running up the Rock Titan. This is also shown when pushing against a wall later, that is combined with a keyblade stroke not too dissimilar to an attack that would be combined with flowmotion from Dream Drop Distance.
- The attraction flow train ride reappears in this trailer from the original build of the game, as well as the boat ride that was shown along with it. A new tea cup ride is shown to exist, though not much about it is known from this trailer.
- Aero is a confirmed magic in the game, bringing the confirmed magic to five: fire, blizzard, thunder, cure, and aero. This version of aero interestingly appears to be the offensive version from games like Birth by Sleep, as opposed to its original appearance in the first game.
- The not-star seeker is shown to have a keyblade transformation that appears to come in two stages: one version is two separate guns, and the other version is a combined cannon. The first form also appears to combine with the ice sliding flowmotion at one point, shooting projectiles down at a large body Sora aims at. The new Olympus keyblade is also shown to have two stages of transformation: one that appears to be a shield and one that turns into a giant Pegasus of light driven by Sora in a chariot.
- The keyblades are interactive with their magic, turning the respective color of the magic that they cast.
Notes from KINGDOM HEARTS III – Jump Festa 2015 Excerpt:
- We learn first that the spreading of the dandelion heartless’ “seeds†can be forced if you use aero magic at it, showing that magic and the enemies in this game are interactive. These seeds are not destroyed if blown away, though.
- Sora interacts with his environment more in this game, shown when bumping into Goofy in battle and having to react to it.
- Lock-on returns, and with a large range to boot, tracking nobodies from way behind the tower.
- Aerial dodge returns when Sora confronts the new Marluxia-themed nobodies, and Sora interacts with the petals by dodging them. It is unclear whether or not athletic flow was used to dodge these petals, as aerial dodge is also a very likely possibility to this.
- New nobodies in the Marluxia-themed baddies return.
- Sora uses flowmotion to create a launching point on a cliff behind Rapunzel’s tower, launching himself towards the new nobodies.
- A new version of shotlock, called “flowchainâ€, is shown, where Sora uses it to move between the plague doctor-like flying enemies and later uses it to move around them and use a flowmotion strike. This is very similar to flowmotion abilities shown in Dream Drop Distance. Later Shotlock is used in a more traditional version.
- More environmental interaction is shown when Sora gets caught in the river he is fighting next to.
- From the looks of it, tech points may be implemented into this game. However, don’t take me as an expert on this; I never exploited these much myself, so I’m not too familiar with them or their appearance.
- Several new elemental rhapsody–like heartless are shown, this time far more elaborate and with some sort of shield or weapon of magic that they can use against Sora. They could be redesigns of the originals, though, so take this with a grain of salt.
- A new attraction flow, titled Shooting Ride that appears to be based on Buzz Lightyear’s Ranger Spin, seems to be an arcade-themed attack that records high scores and shoots enemies with laser bolts. This is also one of very little Kingdom Hearts-related elements that are first person, I believe. It ends with one combined blast of three colors, and immediately after the attraction ends Sora can fight again.
Notes from Kingdom Hearts III Orchestra Trailer:
- Here, we truly begin to see the expanse of each world in this game. Olympus has a Thebes area, a Mount Olympus area, and a Heavens area, and each area seems to be the expanse of entire worlds in many of the previous entries, perhaps even bigger. The draw distance for the map, while impressive, is not amazing persay, and objects in the background randomly appear once you get close enough instead of fading in.
- This is where diving is first mentioned anywhere. Here, we see Sora apparently diving into the world, a little bit like Dream Drop Distance, and the end of his dive is accompanied by a slam into the center of a platform where familiar heartless from the E3 2015 trailer appear.
- You are now not required to drop a party member for another world-exclusive party member; rather, the party member’s HP bar now appears above the now permanent bars of SDG.
- Hercules is confirmed as a party member in Olympus Coliseum.
- Drive forms return, the first one being named Guard Form initially shown in a screenshot. This drive form is tied to the new Olympus keyblade, and appears to be the first form of the transformation of the keyblade that we later see turn into that chariot from the E3 2015 trailer. The second drive form shown here appears to be similar to limit form from the remix of the second game, where Sora’s Kingdom Hearts III outfit takes on the second game’s color scheme and Sora uses techniques he learned from that game. This drive form is tied to the Kingdom Key, where the Kingdom Key does not appear to transform.
- Guardian form appears to have a special attack during its first transformation where several golden fists come out to punch the enemies; this appears to be some sort of combo finisher or perhaps the attack finisher, but it remains unclear.
- Shotlocks appear to be keyblade specific, where flowchain remains consistent and the first attack is specific to the keyblade you’re wielding. In the new Olympus keyblade we see Sora using the “unleash†Flowchain option, which appears to be a giant golden ball that sparks everywhere and stuns enemies.
- Another Limit-like command is shown off, where Goofy launches Sora and Sora picks up Goofy to launch him into enemies.
- A new heartless is shown that appears to be a rhapsody-like heartless with a green color scheme.
- Magic appears to take different forms along with your guard forms. For example, when using guardian form, thunder forms a defensive barrier that surrounds Sora.
- Rail sliding is shown as a form of transportation in flowmotion, with the specific rail Sora is sliding on in this trailer not appearing to have any special properties attributed to it except perhaps a landing attack.
- Interestingly, Hercules is a party members in Thebes but does not appear as a party member when fighting the Rock Titan.
- Second Form Sora's finishers appear to be limits from the 2nd game, with sonic rave and ars arcanum being among moves being shown off while transformed.
- Command menus turn yellow for standard battles and red for event or boss battles.
Notes from D23 2017 Trailer Excerpt – Hercules:
- Rail sliding is explored more in this trailer, where Sora is seen sliding on a far larger rail somewhere in the heavens area of Mount Olympus. Here, we see three options while on the rail: blaster, which shoots enemies and is aimed by a reticle that appears once on the rail; superslide, which most likely just increases the speed of your slide; and jump, which is self-explanatory.
- Flowchain is shown off more in this trailer excerpt, where it is used as a form of transportation between platforms. Now, a specific target appears on objects that can be flowchained, which consists of the same sparkle from the athletic flow icon with a square surrounding it.
- The drive form for the not-star seeker is shown off with its first transformation, double arrowguns. Sora can spin/fly around with these guns and shoot magic arrows, harkening back to wisdom form, and can then transform them into their second transformation, magic launcher. Magic launcher shoots out a giant keyblade bomb-looking thing that appears to be made out of metal, which explodes into fireworks and damages enemies as a finisher. Magic launcher can also be used as both a ranged and a melee weapon.
- The first Heartless boss appears, a giant rock golem with a large axe that is destroying Thebes. Sora is seen deflecting his hits, and we see that Thebes is in ruin. Speculation incoming: perhaps the fires being created around the town could be used to power up our fire spells during the fight?
- Sora gets knocked back, and we see some more ragdoll physics from this game.
Notes from D23 2017 Toy Story trailer:
- We are immediately introduced to a new heartless, themed like something to do with the buzz lightyear-themed franchise of Toy Story’s world that has a sci-fi blaster and can fly around on a jetpack.
- Sora dispatches several heartless with a white spell. It is unknown what this is, but it could be anything from thunder to holy to a combo finisher. This is also shown later in what would appear to be, in fact, some sort of combo finisher.
- Woody and Buzz are both confirmed to be party members, bringing two world-exclusive party members into the mix where the only game to do this previously would be Olympus Coliseum from Coded and the X universe.
- It is confirmed through this trailer that you dive whenever you fall from a long height, and the smash is a bonus finisher you can make once you’ve touched the ground.
- A new keyblade, what I’m going to call the Toy Story keyblade, was introduced in this trailer. The first transformation is called hyper hammer, and this appears to be the drive form called “Power Form†that was shared by Nomura on twitter before the Orchestra trailer. This form focuses on heavy hits and interacts with the environment by breaking up the ground below it. Its finisher is a large smack on the ground powered up by the rocket at the top of the hammer. The spell fire appears to take its defensive KHII form when used in Power Form. The next transformation is drill punch, where Sora drills into the ground and reemerges to attack enemies. He can also stab the ground and have spikes come out for what appears to be some sort of combo finisher for the form. It is unclear whether or not this is a feature of the entire form or just the drill punch version, but aero is also more stylized and punchy, forming a powerful column of air that Sora can propel himself on to use a flowmotion slam attack from the air. Keyblade transformations now have air combos as well, and the drill spins ant drives itself towards enemies when propelled in the air similar to sonic blade. The form finisher involves Sora summoning a claw with a laser cord to grab an enemy and slam it around the area, damaging other heartless in the other process.
- A truly interactive experience from this world presents itself with the “Gigasâ€, giant toy robots that Sora can pilot. It is unclear whether these gigas are piloted by heartless or not before Sora takes them over, but Sora can attack them and they function as enemies as well. Each giga has blaster, punch, booster, danger dash, and eject, with each color of Giga also having their own signature attack that must be recharged over time. The red Giga has tackle, the blue Giga has exploder, and the purple Giga has cannon. The gigas are piloted in a first-person style, much like the shooting ride attraction flow, and are targeted via reticle much like that game.
- It is worth noting here that Sora appears to be using the Toy Story Keyblade's drill as a form of movement while in power form.
Notes from d23 Expo Japan 2018 Monsters Inc. trailer:
- In this trailer, we now see fully interactive command menus in the style of Kingdom Hearts II’s, with a Monsters Inc., Toy Story, and Kingdom of Corona themed one being shown off.
- The unversed are confirmed to reappear in Kingdom Hearts III, with floods, a beatle-looking unversed that turns into some sort of large slug, and a snake-like unversed that is purple with wing-like appendages on the side of its face.
- A new keyblade, here called the Monsters Inc. Keyblade, appears in this trailer, with its first transformation here being called quick claws, which quickly go around the field and attack the enemy. Its second transformation is twin yoyo’s, where Sora smacks people with razor-edged yoyo’s he’s spinning on his fingers. The finisher for the keyblade is a giant googly-eyed hat-monster that grabs a heartless between its jaws and clamps down on it until it’s destroyed.
- On the rails here, you can “take cover†when a bolt of electricity is coming down on the rail. This may perhaps be a mechanic worked into multiple rails in the game. Interestingly enough, the options present on the Olympus rail are not shown on this rail; perhaps this rail just operates differently?
- Mike and Sulley from Monsters Inc. are party members in the Monsters Inc. world, and Rapunzel and Flynn Ryder are party members in Kingdom of Corona.
- A new keyblade, here called the Keyblade of Corona, is shown to transform into one of its transformations in this trailer, the mirage staff. Here, Sora is seen in the same blue outfit from the not-star seeker’s drive form, and he is seen moving like Wisdom Form’s quick run had you move, implying that this form is a magic-based form. The finisher for the mirage staff transformation is a giant tower, reminiscent of Rapunzel’s, that shoots beams of light out. It's keychain is a frying pan (!!!).
- Links are confirmed to be similar to D-Links, with the main difference being that their power is instead shown graphically in a form similar to summons. Links shown in this trailer include Ariel and Meow Wow, where Ariel summons a large pillar of water and Meow Wow explodes into hundreds of smaller dream eaters. Meow Wow was obtained by Sora after the events of DDD (hinted at by Famitsu).
- Swimming mechanics are confirmed to be in the game.
- We get further evidence that shotlocks are tied to keyblades, with the Keyblade of Corona getting an option called “spectral rays†when a shotlock is unleashed. The keyblade is also transformed when this shotlock is unleashed, interestingly enough.
- A UFO-style boss in the Toy Story world is shown off, looking much like a gummi ship. This boss has two phases.
- Sora is seen performing some sort of limit command with Buzz and Woody, riding a rocket into the boss. Another attack, where Sora bowls Mike into a bunch of heartless, is also shown, appearing to be some sort of limit as well. In the latest Famitsu article, these were translated as Link Attacks, and Mike Sulley's bowling ball attack is one of these. Scream Strike might also be one of these.
- A very small point I should have noticed earlier, but there are separate animations for both combat and non-combat face avatars now.
- Interactive flowmotion icons have that sparkle with the square again, as Sora spins around a pole attacking heartless in Monsters Inc. to perform a flowmotion attack harkening back to its debut.
- A new heartless appears here, a blue rhapsody-like heartless with a blue plaid design.
- A meter, called “laugh powerâ€, is shown throughout the Monsters Inc. world, where it appears that Boo is involved. This meter possibly operates similar to the morale meter from Land of Dragons.
- It is worth mentioning here that Dodge Cancelling is shown in several of these trailers and seems to be coming back.
- Sora is struck while activating Meow Wow's link, showing that you do not get invincibility through link attacks.
Notes from KINGDOM HEARTS III Theme Song Trailer – “Don’t Think Twice†by Hikaru Utada:
- The Sora model jumping into the Heaven’s area is now KHII Sora, and many have pointed out that a chest has ever so slightly changed position on the map.
- The Olympus command menu is seen.
- General refinement on character models.
This list will be updated with each new trailer and eventually compiled into sections, similar to Audo's thread, of things we know about the game. For any future moderators looking at this thread, I do apologize if you notice this, but if two updates happen close to each other or the thread becomes mostly inactive except for my bumps to let people know of new ipdates, I will have to double post from time to time.
Hope you guys found this informative! Was there anything you didn't know of before, or something you noticed that you've been dying for someone else to bring up? Whatever it was, comment below and let me know ~U~
~Many thanks to:
Oracle Spockanort - cleaned up presentation
Chaser - confirmed that the "movement flowmotion" as I said earlier was actually called "athletic flow"
KH2Rulz - Gave me plenty of extra modifications to my original article, including Dodge Cancelling and movement command changes.
Sora2016 - observed that Hercules doesn't appear as a party member fighting the Rock Titan.
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