badcrumble
Member
I don't know about that. The trend has been to make the Disney characters less important from one game to the next, and that would really go against that trend. I did like how much more Maleficent mattered in KH1, but yeah.
Shinji Hashimoto, a Square game producer, had been discussing the possibility of creating an open world game like Super Mario 64, with Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy. The company decided to get started on its own project but the two lamented the fact that one of the reasons the Mario game had been so successful is that the Italian plumber was already a well-established character. One or both of the men remarked that perhaps only Disney had a stable of intellectual property that was as well-known worldwide as Nintendos.
As fate would have it, one day Hashimoto found himself standing in an elevator next to a top executive from Disney. Square and Disney had at one time worked in the same office building in Japan. The random meeting gave Hashimoto the opportunity he needed to present Squares idea directly to Disney. Development began in February 2000 with Hashimoto serving as producer and Tetsuya Nomura, the lead character designer from Final Fantasy VII as director.
At first, the game was designed to have a simple story aimed at Disneys target audience: young children. But then the Godfather of Final Fantasy stepped in. Sakaguchi told Nomura that he felt the game would be a failure if the story did not aspire to be just as great as one of Squares Final Fantasy titles. Nomura then set out to further develop the story. The name Kingdom Hearts was originally inspired by Disneys Animal Kingdom theme park, which back then had just recently opened in Florida. As Nomura further developed the story around the theme of the characters hearts, the developer decided to merge the two names together to create Kingdom Hearts.
Square was given unprecedented access to the Disney vault and while the company wasnt given too many restrictions, the developer still tried to ensure that everything in each of the Disney worlds felt like it fit with the already established guidelines for those worlds created by the House of Mouse.
No one was sure what the initial reception to the game would be, so Nomura put in a hidden video at the end of the first game that hinted at a possible sequel just to see what the reaction would be. This is now a tradition that has been used multiple times throughout the history of the franchise to tease fans about upcoming games.
#themoreyouknow
That was interesting. I want to know what was Disney doing in Japan and their business with Square Enix before that the first Kingdom Hearts game was made. I haven't seen anything "Japanese related" stuffs with Disney stuffs. It has always been western made.
Oh and Mashimoto speak English?
I don't know about that. The trend has been to make the Disney characters less important from one game to the next, and that would really go against that trend. I did like how much more Maleficent mattered in KH1, but yeah.
DreamDrop said:Maleficent in KH2 was kinda terrifying. And brilliant.
Now, when you play the game the first time, you might think that at that moment, Maleficent is officially just a second-rate side villain since she decides to waste time turning Santa into a heartless when she should instead try to conquer the universe. However when you really think about the whole grand design of her campy plan, you realizes that it might be one of her most sadistic and sick plans ever. Santa Claus whole job is to deliver Christmas presents to nice boys and girls at Christmas, and from what we can hint from his first scene with the list, he dont just move around in his own world but to other worlds as well, just like the heroes but with a sled instead of a gummi ship. If he were to turn into a heartless, he still would be able to travel around the worlds to all nice boys and girls during Christmas, but instead of presents as gifts for their niceness, they would get a Santa Heartless who would take their hearts and turn them into Heartless as well their family members. So what Maleficent is doing is not Villain Decay since she plans to boost her Heartless horde by turning a beloved and popular figure into a monster and then let him loose on innocent, goodhearted people, specifically children, from around the universe, and no one would see it coming, since Santa is the last person they would suspect being an heart consuming monster acting on orders of one of the most megalomaniacal people around.
I'd be pretty disappointed if KH3 does involve just going back to the same old Disney worlds again. I've had enough of Agrabah, Halloween Town, Olympus Coliseum and Atlantica. Let some other Disney worlds have a chance to shine. Also I didn't realise there was a secret boss fight with Julius in KH3D. I hope there's more secret Disney character boss fights in the new games. Finally what new FF/Square characters do you think will cameo in KH3?
Mirage Arena is infinitely better.I don't think we'll see Halloween Town come back, but I would be surprised if the Olympus Coliseum didn't return (and, as long as it's treated as a coliseum, ideally KH1 style, that's just peachy).
Mirage Arena is infinitely better.
Mirage Arena is infinitely better.
Makes me wonder what the fuck were they thinking with KH2 coliseum. It could have potentially been really cool looking but it just ended up being so... bland.
And what the fuck is this? THIS is where it's at.
I'm hoping that KH 2.5 Remix's version of Birth By Sleep tweaks the Mirage Arena difficulty and reward system, because it *could* absolutely be the best in the series when it's revamped to be a strictly single-player experience. But it'd still lack some things that KH1 had (actual storytelling, for example).
Makes me wonder what the fuck were they thinking with KH2 coliseum. It could have potentially been really cool looking but it just ended up being so... bland.
And what the fuck is this? THIS is where it's at.
Going through everything to actually get your arena level maxed out and fight the extra bosses was insanely annoying. It's the only thing that keeps me from playing BBSFM repeatedly.
The KH2 Colosseum felt rushed to me for some reason.
And the KH2 music is hella terrible. Yoko plz.
My apologies, I meant the colosseum music. It's two and a half minutes of synth farting.
Most of the rest of the soundtrack is stellar.
Except for that game's One Winged Angel remix, which sounds fine in the game but actually listening to it in isolation isn't very good.
Also Atlantica but that goes without saying.
Anyone know where to find a complete save file of the PSP Birth by Sleep for the Asian ver.?
The code on the side of my brother's copy, which he tells me he got from Malaysia is UCAS40317. Being Asia ver., it's region 3. He's beaten the game before but over-wrote the save data.
I'm gonna start counting days when March hits and complain something about the series every day until we get more 2.5 news.
Now that I think about Nomuras ''season'' comment I'm afraid it becomes more and more likely to be Fall. God damnit SE, can't you see May is the perfect spot for WW release! What even releases then?
I kinda expect 2.5 news to hit basically right after FFX HD comes out in North America. So: late March.
Likewise for FFXV (at least in Japanese magazines, if not with video footage).
Watch them release it again in Sept when shitton of other games come out within few weeks .
Last time was terrible enough for my wallet (and my patience!). But oh well, time does run fast. Can't believe it's already been like over 4 months since it was officially revealed.
Oh, not to worry, I would buy 2.5 over anything that's coming this fall (well, maybe not Danganronpa 2..) ANYWAY I would like to have dem games spread out so my wallet has easier time to digest it all .Repeat after me: "I don't actually need any games except for Kingdom Hearts."
Also, the December trailer barely showed us any gameplay (though at least there was some). I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot more work to be done in that regard.
Repeat after me: "I don't actually need any games except for Kingdom Hearts."
Also, the December trailer barely showed us any gameplay (though at least there was some). I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot more work to be done in that regard.
Oh, not to worry, I would buy 2.5 over anything that's coming this fall (well, maybe not Danganronpa 2..) ANYWAY I would like to have dem games spread out so my wallet has easier time to digest it all .
IIRC last time it was 1.5, Rayman, Puppeteer, Ducktales, Miku and bunch of others just rammed to a span of few weeks.
I don't think there is much work on gameplay really. If it was playable at JF on PS3 hardware there shouldn't be much of problems getting a huge majority of the game running well easily from that if they had a stable build. I'd imagine the work is more about the new music, new art assets and performance rather than getting the game working. Who knows tho.
Also as you said they have other games still coming out and some that have just released. It's entirely possible the game is basically 99% complete right now but they are just sitting on it for strategic reasons.
Remember that trailer of 1.5 they released less than 3 months before japanese release that showed Re:CoM gameplay with TERRIBLE framerate? I'd imagine they don't want to repeat that.
What if there really was no footage and Kingdom Hearts II.5 was just a mass hallucination?
Random thought, but I hope in 2.5 they deem fit to retain Sora's handwritten notes in Jiminy's Journal this time for the localized version.
Probably not as simple as downloading a Japan region file and changing all instances of "ULJMXXXXX" to "UCAS40317", huh? Maybe someone here has a copy of the same region and can upload their files.
Ooof that seems risky, but I'll tell my brother about it, thanks.
I hope the next time KH 2.5 HD Remix gets presented it means much more gameplay footage, more talk with the press, answers about what they'll be doing with the Mirage Arena and what kind of musical/visual improvements we can expect.
I'd also not mind an actual direct answer about when they'll bring KHDD or its cutscenes to consoles, but I don't expect them to talk about that yet.
Oh, and I'm really really hoping that the scenes that didn't get English voice-overs for KH2FM will finally get that for this release.
But Kairi looks the same in 3D despite NaminéI think some pictures are missing from your post.
But also, don't forget that Roxas merges back with Sora before Sora becomes playable in KH2, which could account for the hair-lightening business.
I thought Sora's hair changed because they just felt like changing it...
I thought Sora's hair changed because they just felt like changing it...
This is what I'm going with.
It's not uncommon for them to sneak in call forwards. For example, Tink and Roxas, or the Recusant Sigil and the outfits of Ventus, Aqua, and Terra and even Riku.
Sora's hair was lighter (some might say paler) in beta footage of KH1. It was darkened before the game was released. His 2D character art shows him with the lighter brown hair, though. KH2 just changed it back to the lighter shade that Nomura probably preferred. I personally don't see anything in that.
The only RS confirmed is the one on Sora in 3D. Unless stated otherwise, any other X's should be considered as just a design theme and nothing more.
Did deciding on the three main characters design go smoothly?
Nomura: No, I had a relatively hard time with that. Especially with those three armored suits they transform into, when I was first designing them I had decided that it'd be "armor that becomes a round device." However thinking of how to incorporate that sort of device into clothing was difficult. But once "X" became a keyword for this story, the shape of that symbol became inspiration for the main three's outfits.
Not true.
Any "changes" you're seeing can easily be covered by that one all-important caveat: they're older. Designs change to reflect the difference between then and now. Is his being taller also mean he's being transformed into a dark entity?
Um... that just reinforces my point. Anyway, you're overlooking something: why would Aqua and Terra have a Sigil on there persons before ever meeting Master Xehanort? Xehanort even admits in his 11th Report not knowing about Terra and Aqua until he first arrives to drop off Ventus. And then there's Ventus, who had a slightly-different uniform with no X when training with MX, and then magically gains one after he's been left with Eraqus.
Because really, it sounds a lot like Master Eraqus is the one handing out the X's here, not MX.
Ventus and Vanitas were not matched in power; I could not train them together, or Vanitas's darkness would gnaw away what little Ventus had left.
Of course, since I needed a place where the boy's light might flourish, the answer was obvious: Eraqus, and his absolutes.
Considering how we had parted ways, I expected frictionbut if anything, Eraqus seemed delighted to see me again. He readily agreed to take care of Ventus. Now I need only wait for the boy's heart to get stronger.
I had not visited this second home of mine for some time, and discovered Eraqus had already found two pupils of his own. Within one of them, Terra, I sensed something. The boy, though well-intentioned, seeks power single-mindedly. And that kind of hunger is a seedbed for darkness.
I had found my vessel.
Also, no one likes a jerkass.
Riku and Kairi are both older as well and neither of them had a a comparable change.
Nothing in that contradicts me. That was quite obviously written some time before the events of BBS, so Xehanort knew about Terra.
Yes all three do have X across their chests. But if you look at Aqua and Ventus, their X is broken by the Mark of Mastery.
Going back to the tendency of KH games to call forward, the recusant sigil was called forward way back in the first Kingdom Hearts, wherein Riku's dark mode outfit had a Heartless symbol sans the X. Why? Because even after he fell to darkness, his heart was so strong as to not be branded by Xehanort; this also served as foreshadowing for Riku's eventual ability to break the shackles Ansem SOD held on his heart and wield the dark as his own.
Soooo I just read the requirements for getting the secret movie in KHII Final Mix. I think I'll go for Proud Mode because fuck the Gummi Missions.
Plus, playing through KH2 (Standard Mode) a while back, it was really easy. Even the notorious bosses I had trouble with when I was younger were a piece of cake (notably Xaldin).
Soooo I just read the requirements for getting the secret movie in KHII Final Mix. I think I'll go for Proud Mode because fuck the Gummi Missions.
Plus, playing through KH2 (Standard Mode) a while back, it was really easy. Even the notorious bosses I had trouble with when I was younger were a piece of cake (notably Xaldin).
I see. So now everything I say or do to counter any of your points will be seen as jerkish behavior and not just basic critiques or any kind of meaningful debate. Nice.
Is his being taller also mean he's being transformed into a dark entity?
Jiminy's journal is still torture though. I went for critical.
I can handle Jiminy's Journal.