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News ► New Kingdom Hearts 3 Re:Mind DLC trailer, Release Dates Announced



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AdrianXXII

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He’s unlocking Riku’s. We see him above Ventus’s as well.
Oh well i figured seeing it was young Teen Riku, with Naminé and Ansem on it, that it was Repliku's. Seeing I figured Riku would have at least Sora and maybe Kairi on it.

So if Sora is unlocking all of the Guardian's Stations that means we will see Mickey's as well. I've always been curious what his would look like. Probably Disney Castle background with Goofy, Donald, Pluto, and Minnie
I'd actually love to see everyone's station of awakening, but time will tell if we get to.
 

Sign

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Oh well i figured seeing it was young Teen Riku, with Naminé and Ansem on it, that it was Repliku's. Seeing I figured Riku would have at least Sora and maybe Kairi on it.


I'd actually love to see everyone's station of awakening, but time will tell if we get to.

Yeah, they're using those old stained glass clock artwork from the 15th anniversary. Judging by the description, it sounds like we'll be seeing several other Stations of Awakenings, but it's probably safe to assume they will all use the clock arts.
 

Megavoltage

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So if Sora is unlocking all of the Guardian's Stations that means we will see Mickey's as well. I've always been curious what his would look like. Probably Disney Castle background with Goofy, Donald, Pluto, and Minnie
Sounds about right. Yensid is a big part of his life as well and would probably be on.
 

AdrianXXII

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Yeah, they're using those old stained glass clock artwork from the 15th anniversary. Judging by the description, it sounds like we'll be seeing several other Stations of Awakenings, but it's probably safe to assume they will all use the clock arts.
That's still cool. Also considering that not all Guardians have stain glassed ones, there might be new ones in the mix, though I can see Nomura not having the time to design new ones.
 

alexis.anagram

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Once again you sum up my own feelings exceedingly well. It's true that what we got, in hindsight, should've been expected to a degree. I guess, I just didn't think Nomura and co. would go so far out of their way to do it (especially in a dlc).
Somebody in SE's PR department has been giving Nomura notes. ;)

EXACTLY. I was meaning to say this for a while, but... This trailer honestly burned me out. The overly convoluted concepts required to make sense of everything it shows, regardless if they fit or not, finally got me to the point where I'm just like: "This is absolutely ridiculous, but I don't give a shit anymore. Do whatever you want at this point, lol." I can't think about worldliness for too long without getting a headache and asking a dozen questions, so suffice to say, I definitely don't appreciate them as a storytelling mechanic.
Precisely. More to this point, as well as @FudgemintGuardian 's, I think there's an identifiable reason the trailer created a sense of "burn out," as you aptly describe it, and it has to do with another sentiment that has been expressed here: the notion that it recalls the marketing effort for KH3 proper. In particular, I think if we look at the Final Battle trailer, it provoked essentially the same reaction from large swaths of the fanbase-- KH3 is surely an epic masterpiece, look at the sheer scale and breadth of events occurring in rapid, disordered cuts that offer effectively zero insight into the context informing the moments in realtime. Sora screaming! What's going on with Donald! Hype and fervor!

Now that's not to knock anyone for getting excited then or being excited now, but if we look at what ultimately happened with regards to the execution of the Keyblade Graveyard sequence of events in particular (but, really, the game as a whole leading up to them is as significant a culprit), most of those moments didn't quite carry the same shine as they did punctuated all together in an informational blitz designed to focus your eye on one thing and one thing only: the spectacle. Behold! There are exciting things happening here, and you know they are exciting because we've done the advertising equivalent of putting them in Arial Bold, all caps, with at least a dozen exclamation points to emphasize just how precisely we are beaming these signals through your Reticular Formation!

Peel back the spectacle, however, and what is there? This is, I think, the most pertinent question to ask in evaluating and analyzing the elements that make up this, um, "trailer." And, ultimately, I think it represents a lot of shaky to bad ideas that feel like good ideas because they stroke the fan ego in all of us that wants to believe Nomura "gets it now." He "heard us."

Did he?

Let's start with playable Kairi. The first thing I personally noticed is that she's with Sora. She's only with Sora. Again. And why wouldn't she be? This clearly takes place in the interim between him using whatever power Nomura's decided he has now to go find her and him disappearing on the tree. But what that ultimately means is that Nomura has chosen to, once again, center her agency on his, in a storyline where she is still marginalized and framed as a passive support archetype who is murdered in order to stoke her bf's pathos. We (presumably) don't play as Kairi in the Wherever prior to Sora's arrival. We (presumably) don't fight Xemnas/Ansem SoD/Master Xehanort with her in the moments prior to her demise (and I concede that would come with its own set of problems). But, in addition to all this, now we have to contend with the fact that Kairi can do all of that and we still watched her freeze in front of Terranort (good thing Sora was there!), get taken off guard by Xemnas (too bad Sora wasn't there?), and get one-hit KO'd by MX (Sora tried though, he really did). Shifting the lens over to her superficially as a way to paper over the disaster that is her arc while keeping intact all of the dynamics that have stagnated her as a character, while also trying to have the cake and eat it too by making her a Power Puff Girl, is a markedly disingenuous way to address the criticisms levied at her role in this game. It's not about seeing her toss some flashy moves around, dude. That's not gonna do it for any of these characters.

Now, the FF gang. I'm glad they're back. The staff wanted them, the fans wanted them, it is a good thing to see them. But folding them back in through this ancillary epilogue when the contention has been that their absence is conspicuous in the main story because Sora's connection to them is central to every notable journey he's been on is not just insufficient-- it makes their absence more conspicuous. Unless they're going to revise the main plot to incorporate them at some juncture as more than window dressing, this only serves to reinforce the broken state of the narrative that is core to KH3. We have to keep in mind that this is all an addendum to the actual plot of the game: the aspects and elements that were missed were felt strongly in their absence because they were envisioned as having a role to play in driving this saga towards its climax. This is all post-climax. Xehanort's dead, Sora had his big adventure, and it's almost time for the curtain call-- trotting these toys out to retroactively fill in the holes in the production that preceded them can only emphasize its patchiness. It makes them, ironically, what they ought to have been studiously avoiding making them: cameos. Probably brief, likely expository, unlikely to have much impact one way or the other.

Now for the big picture. I could go through every frame of this trailer but the reality is, most of what's happening doesn't matter. On a narrative level, it already happened: Sora is only seeing it so that we can see it, but unless Nomura pulls a real 180 (which, yeah, OK, this is Nomura we're dealing with) nothing is liable to change in a material way. There is an opportunity for some added emphasis here and there, and that's fine and has merit, but in terms of how these characters affect the drama that has unfolded around them, and the degree to which they're developed as participants in this climactic entry, it's a cosmetic adjustment. Turns out, there were a couple of B and C plots left to burn through, but it's not especially galvanizing to think that this is the stuff that was placed on the back burner so that Nomura could push his gacha game and his Versus revival pet project, knowing that there would be opportunities to do DLC packs and put it on the fans to pay more for what is, in the end, some probably rudimentary character and story material that fleshes out all of the parts of the story that should have been first and second ticket items on the "to flesh out" list. I know, I know, they were pressed for time, Disney sucks, the world was working against them: I would have been perfectly happy if this DLC pack was titled "Sequel Bait Up the Whazoo" and in the game I actually bought we got a scene with Xion, Mickey and Aqua breathing the same air. I had high expectations, I can't help it.

My final point is basically just that I expect this trailer is, provided it follows the trend of every other KH3 trailer, representative of all of the catharsis that can be reasonably expected from the ReMind DLC. If you loved the pure, heady, thoughtless spectacle at which KH3 excelled, it's a late Christmas miracle. If you're looking for an emotional and dramatic kind of logic that facilitates a better telling of this story rather than making a transparent play to gag the criticism surrounding it via pandering, well, there's always 358/2 Days or CoM.

Not really, the only worldline related thing seems to be Yozora (which is most likely after all this anyway, and leads into the next game). The rest of the trailer is the same worldline we've been in this whole series.
I was going to say it can't be time travel because Sora didn't cast off his physical form but I guess there are probably a dozen or more viable reasons that's not necessarily true at this point, exactly one game after that mechanic was introduced, so. Yeah it's not liable to make the story feel more confusing or incoherent at all haha.

Also the "it should have been in the game from the start" thing is complicated. At the end of the day, game development takes time, and working on main things takes priority.
Main things like
Subject X
Mandatory star being a nameless future character while optional star is one of the main protagonists since the second game in the series
"The Light from the Past"
Marluxia is from the past
Larxene is from the past
Luxord is from the past
Xigbar is from the past
Demyx is from the...where'd he get off to?

A lot of the story stuff for the Re+MIND scenario should have been in since it is main story. But stuff like the Data Battles and the Secret Episode would have eaten development time from other things. Plus as we've established in other threads, Disney was messing up the process and making development take longer than needed. Which means post-game would not be on the list of tasks to get done before shipping.
There were a lot of circumstantial factors that hurt this game's development (note, this is true for probably every game ever made), and I applaud the development staff for sticking with it and putting in the extra hours. But I blame Nomura as much for his bad planning and indulgent approach to the process as anything. He was going after the rights to Toy Story before he even had a plan for how it would be incorporated into the story. His staff was telling him the FF characters should be in the game, but he didn't feel they were special enough for his game series anymore. He thought (not for the first time) that nobody would care that Aqua is a character who has an arc that kind of matters. Nomura had years to develop a story for this game, and when push came to shove, he had time enough to figure out what he was going to feature and what he was going to cut: and we got Verum Rex and buckets of cryptic allusion as to how relevant KH4 will be to making sense of this title when we could have gotten a plot for Xion. Or Roxas. Or Terra. Or Kairi.

I don't doubt that Nomura was pressed, but I also think he directed this game poorly. Both can be true.
 

Alpha Baymax

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Now this is all exciting stuff. Good on Nomura for not revealing anything until they had substantial content to reveal.

I really hope we get Yuna, Rikku and Paine as part of The Restoration Committee in this game. Also, I want to see Seifer's gang again.

The fact Disney doesn't matter two fucks in this series is more prevalent with this trailer than ever.

Disney worlds and characters were never a selling point for any Final Mix edition. Also, the Kingdom Hearts original characters are owned by Disney anyway so I fail to see the point of this response.
 

Absent

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I really, really, really hope they retcon Kairi’s death. The treatment of Kairi as a whole was a stain to my overall experience of Kingdom Hearts 3.
The damage is done but I hope having Kairi playable can ease some of my bitterness.
 

alexis.anagram

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Like recruiting Kairi to take the exam with the boys the first time? That one always gets me, ha
giphy.gif

Yes. Like that.

I really, really, really hope they retcon Kairi’s death. The treatment of Kairi as a whole was a stain to my overall experience of Kingdom Hearts 3.
I hate to break it to you but...*whispers* the entire premise of ReMind is that Kairi died.

The damage is done but I hope having Kairi playable can ease some of my bitterness.
I'll willingly ease your burden and take on the extra. Also accepting salt.
 

Alpha Baymax

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I am certain the Neo Princesses will be
ummm
A big deal, moving forward.

I think they will but just not for this game and I'm honestly fine with that. I like how the Princess of Hearts having a rotating roster of representatives was introduced in this game.

So far, we have Kairi, Rapunzel, Anna and Elsa. And we've yet to see three of the remaining Princess of Hearts who are likely going to be unveiled in the game before Kingdom Hearts IV.
 

Beyond

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But, at the end, did Sora think Yozora was Riku?
Because I sure did at the beginning. 😂
So, at the end of this DLC, Sora will end in Shibuya?
That's the only sense I can give at the scene.
 

2 quid is good

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Perhaps because I criticise KH3 so much, people think that I have some lofty high standards or something.

That couldn't be farther from the truth. There was always only a couple things I wanted from a KH3, strong original worlds and FF characters. The fact that we have them back is enough for me to buy the dlc, as someone who was 100% not going to buy it.

I fully anticipate that the story will be as shite as the base version, but as long as I have my explorable original worlds, FF characters and strong character interactions, I can live with it.

It wasn't at all hard to make KH3 pleasing to 95% of the fanbase initially, and it upsets me that we're having to pay extra for this, but I want to be able to enjoy KH3, and Leon will go some ways to making that happen. Just imagine if Radiant Garden had been included in the base game and that the characters that weren't named Sora weren't jobbers, the game would probably be GOTY for most fans. It probably would have been for me.

So yeah, this trailer was stupid hype, and Nomura has once again successfully taken my money. Now please get yourself an editor and continuity person XD
 

Ballad of Caius

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I KNEW IT! Sora dies because he feels the despair of everyone's hearts he tried to save! By losing their hearts to darkness, their worst emotions come out, meaning that Sora's connections with them tightens as he uses the Power of Waking, meaning that he bridged his heart to darkness, unwillingly, causing his demise.
 

SuperSaiyanSora

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I KNEW IT! Sora dies because he feels the despair of everyone's hearts he tried to save! By losing their hearts to darkness, their worst emotions come out, meaning that Sora's connections with them tightens as he uses the Power of Waking, meaning that he bridged his heart to darkness, unwillingly, causing his demise.

The fact that you see the Heartless Tornado as a ton of Anti-Aquas is.... Telling. I always figured the poor girl had PTSD considering the events of everything, but now it's been laid out clearly. It sounds like it was her falling into the abyss that really messed her up, because in 0.2 she was worried for her sanity but at the end, she had renewed faith. And in the scene with Ansem The Wise in KH3, she seemed to be pretty optimistic that she'd still be saved by somebody.

But what really interests me is the fact that Chirithy said "You'll disappear from this world, and without your powers, you won't be able to return." It almost sounds like Sora damaged his heart to the point where he can't use the Keyblade anymore. The first time, he just used the Power of Waking and went around saving everyone. But this time, maybe his heart ended up being too weak because of the bonds being too much.

It reminds me of what Xigbar said, "Yes, hearts are powerful when they're connected, but if you put too much of that power in one place, some of those hearts might end up breaking." Even in the base game, you can see that he's foreshadowing what Sora would eventually do and what his fate would end up being. But, seeing what we saw of ReMIND so far... He called everything, and I can't help but wonder if this was planned.
 

Ballad of Caius

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The fact that you see the Heartless Tornado as a ton of Anti-Aquas is.... Telling. I always figured the poor girl had PTSD considering the events of everything, but now it's been laid out clearly. It sounds like it was her falling into the abyss that really messed her up, because in 0.2 she was worried for her sanity but at the end, she had renewed faith. And in the scene with Ansem The Wise in KH3, she seemed to be pretty optimistic that she'd still be saved by somebody.

But what really interests me is the fact that Chirithy said "You'll disappear from this world, and without your powers, you won't be able to return." It almost sounds like Sora damaged his heart to the point where he can't use the Keyblade anymore. The first time, he just used the Power of Waking and went around saving everyone. But this time, maybe his heart ended up being too weak because of the bonds being too much.

It reminds me of what Xigbar said, "Yes, hearts are powerful when they're connected, but if you put too much of that power in one place, some of those hearts might end up breaking." Even in the base game, you can see that he's foreshadowing what Sora would eventually do and what his fate would end up being. But, seeing what we saw of ReMIND so far... He called everything, and I can't help but wonder if this was planned.
The entirety of the Disney worlds were narrative foreshadowing Sora's fate.
 
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