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I witnessed and participated in the hype train of KH3 for the years upon years of waiting (after the first actual announcement). I was curious how you all feel about the way KH3 was marketed. Were world reveal trailers and a snippet of main story your taste? Were the spoiler-heavy trailers closer to the release date a good idea? Was the issue that they showed so much that people assumed that there had to be more? What would you like to see for future main titles marketing wise?
I personally enjoyed the world reveal trailers that we got like once or twice a year leading up to KH3. I had two issues: We didn't get English trailers until near the end, so some earlier world reveals (like Toy Box and Monstropolis) never had an English trailer -- which isn't necessarily bad, just that for iconic characters like Buzz/Woody/Mike/Sulley I think the fans would want to hear what the English voice actors sounded like (IE did they get the original voice actors). My biggest issue was the amount of spoilers for the main story that ended up being shown. I actually stopped watching trailers after the 100 Acre Wood one. Now if there was more to come than what was shown, I'd have been a little bit more accepting of it, but the fact that the "Final Battle Trailer" basically truncates the entire story of KH3 into that one video felt like a bad idea. Give us clips that will excite us, but don't give it all away so that when we're in it we get disappointed. There are also moments that are epic in the trailer, but then kinda fall flat in the main game (Aqua's "Mickey, you're too late" for example) seem like they were included in the main game just for promotional purposes.
I don't know if the KH fanbase is different from other game franchises because we have such a long-winded and storied history to follow for the game, but I feel like the KH fanbase will take any new trailer and analyze the hell out of it and expect tidbits of information shown to lead somewhere. Nomura should know this by now, if he doesn't he should learn from this. Everyone was expecting Dark Aqua to be a bigger storyline, especially given 0.2 being recently released. So the disappointment of having Dark Aqua be a 5 minute situation is understandable.
In my opinion, KH games should be marketed like this: Disney world reveals (for more popular worlds) that showcase mainly gameplay and elements of the first act of the world's story, a bit of main story that hypes up the crowd (a good example would Riku leaving his broken keyblade in the Realm of Darkness), and a very short clip of something at the end that confuses the hell out of us, yet keeps us very intrigued/excited (like say the Disney world revealed is Toy Box, we see Yozora's silhouette watching Sora/Woody/Buzz from above). Also, I would keep some things under wraps, mainly the number of worlds in the game. I wouldn't reveal every world, so that when you play the game it'll be a surprise to see additional worlds. I may have been a complete idiot to hope/believe this, but during my first run of KH3 I genuinely believed that after we cleared San Fransokyo/The Caribbean/saved Aqua, there would be 2 more worlds to visit before the Keyblade Graveyard. I was actually expecting Agrabah and A Bug's Life to show up -- yes, I'm a complete fool for thinking it would have happened, but something in me was saying that there had to be more because I couldn't believe they would reveal every world and basically give away everything in trailers.
Anyway, I would love to hear you all's thoughts on the marketing for KH3 and going forward.
I personally enjoyed the world reveal trailers that we got like once or twice a year leading up to KH3. I had two issues: We didn't get English trailers until near the end, so some earlier world reveals (like Toy Box and Monstropolis) never had an English trailer -- which isn't necessarily bad, just that for iconic characters like Buzz/Woody/Mike/Sulley I think the fans would want to hear what the English voice actors sounded like (IE did they get the original voice actors). My biggest issue was the amount of spoilers for the main story that ended up being shown. I actually stopped watching trailers after the 100 Acre Wood one. Now if there was more to come than what was shown, I'd have been a little bit more accepting of it, but the fact that the "Final Battle Trailer" basically truncates the entire story of KH3 into that one video felt like a bad idea. Give us clips that will excite us, but don't give it all away so that when we're in it we get disappointed. There are also moments that are epic in the trailer, but then kinda fall flat in the main game (Aqua's "Mickey, you're too late" for example) seem like they were included in the main game just for promotional purposes.
I don't know if the KH fanbase is different from other game franchises because we have such a long-winded and storied history to follow for the game, but I feel like the KH fanbase will take any new trailer and analyze the hell out of it and expect tidbits of information shown to lead somewhere. Nomura should know this by now, if he doesn't he should learn from this. Everyone was expecting Dark Aqua to be a bigger storyline, especially given 0.2 being recently released. So the disappointment of having Dark Aqua be a 5 minute situation is understandable.
In my opinion, KH games should be marketed like this: Disney world reveals (for more popular worlds) that showcase mainly gameplay and elements of the first act of the world's story, a bit of main story that hypes up the crowd (a good example would Riku leaving his broken keyblade in the Realm of Darkness), and a very short clip of something at the end that confuses the hell out of us, yet keeps us very intrigued/excited (like say the Disney world revealed is Toy Box, we see Yozora's silhouette watching Sora/Woody/Buzz from above). Also, I would keep some things under wraps, mainly the number of worlds in the game. I wouldn't reveal every world, so that when you play the game it'll be a surprise to see additional worlds. I may have been a complete idiot to hope/believe this, but during my first run of KH3 I genuinely believed that after we cleared San Fransokyo/The Caribbean/saved Aqua, there would be 2 more worlds to visit before the Keyblade Graveyard. I was actually expecting Agrabah and A Bug's Life to show up -- yes, I'm a complete fool for thinking it would have happened, but something in me was saying that there had to be more because I couldn't believe they would reveal every world and basically give away everything in trailers.
Anyway, I would love to hear you all's thoughts on the marketing for KH3 and going forward.