KH3 Premiere Part 2: PJ's Demo Impressions
- Details
- Published on May 22, 2018 @ 05:30 pm
- Written by PJ
Part 2 of our coverage of the Kingdom Hearts 3 Premiere Event! Today we're going to be talking about impressions of the demo!
I was incredibly impressed, first, by how well the event went. I was happy to see how organized everything was and so glad to see such an open venue. The food spread upstairs was very generous, and it was a real treat to get to try actual seasalt ice cream, and demos of Classic Kingdom upstairs. I was also surprised to see a few familiar faces at the premiere that I wasn't expecting! It's also always nice to take a picture with the King.
Tasted really weird, in case you were wondering.
As for the actual demos, there's a lot to say and so much of it has been said before, but here's what I thought.
Olympus
I played a PS4 build for both demos on a PS4 pro. The first demo, Olympus, was very short and only showed the Rock Titan battle. You've all seen it by now, I'm sure. Sora, Donald, and Goofy climb the side of Mount Olympus, avoiding an assault by the Rock Titan. The Rock Titan's attacks are relatively easy to dodge, but I have to say, I was very surprised by the difficulty of this level.
Make no mistake: the game itself wasn't hard. But, it felt like everything was just a tad slower than was acceptable. I really felt like I had to FIGHT to get my combos going. The Keyblade felt incredibly heavy, and the rapid gameplay we've seen in other trailers just wasn't there. I was surprised because it felt like I was working without getting anywhere, really. My first thought was that there was some sort of input lag in this early build. Another thought was, perhaps, that Sora's abilities have been nerfed harder than in previous games in order for him to regain his power later on in that world, as he was supposed to. Though, I feel like it's the former. I haven't seen many other people mention an input lag, though, so perhaps it was just my build.
The Olympus level featured the ability to go into Second Form, which helped a lot with the sluggish Sora I was controlling. He also had the Meow Wow Link at his disposal which reminded me a lot of the Link he had in DDD.
The battle with the Rock Titan was very straight-forward. Hit the legs to knock him over, then leap up to his head to take him out. This is also where we get our first Attraction Flow! Big Magic Mountain railroad was more fun than I was expecting, its mechanic being shooting fireworks at the titan. This demo ended as fast as it began. I have to say, Goofy shouting "look out!" did get tiring. Overall, I liked this demo alright! I don't think it's going to win anyone over to the series, but it was definitely pretty and had some cool concepts.
Toy Box
The real meat of the day was in the Toy Story demo. We were told that the demo represented roughly 30% of the overall world - in which case, oh my goodness. This game really is going to be huge.
The plot is basically what you've been presented. Sora and co arrive in Andy's room to find out that the majority of Andy's friends and Andy himself have vanished. Not just Andy, but his mom and sister and the rest of the world, too. Based on recon from Sarge, the group travels to a nearby Toy Store called Galaxy Toys in an effort to find their missing friends. Once there, they find that the toy store has been taken over by Young Xehanort, who uses his power to cause Heartless to appear and possess various toys.
So, from the offset, the gameplay was a marked improvement from the first demo. I literally sighed with relief. The various Keyblade transformations are fun and powerful. The Link systems are impressive and beautiful, the attraction flow allows for a wide-range of combat. The gameplay is carte blanche, and all the flashy attacks are totally optional: so it's becoming very clear that goal of Kingdom Hearts III is for you to implement your own preferences and create a gameplay experience that suits you.
That's not to say it's perfect, though. Ground combos still take a bit to get going. Some of the special attacks, such as the rocket ruckus, are needlessly hard to control and some attacks leave too little instruction on how to execute their combos and finishers. Crowds can also get a bit hectic, as at times it seems the waves of enemies just don't end in such an open environment. The AI was fine for the party members, though at times too eager. I was at one point trying to bait a Heartless into seeing if the revenge mechanic had made its way back, but my party members took the thing out after I hit it. Still, most of the game is very intuitive and they're pretty close to finding a right balance between hand-holding and letting you figure things out on your own.
The exploration and easter eggs are the highlight of this level. There were so many fun little things to find. Running around on the Pixar ball, finding the Yard Sale sign and tackle box from the second movie, the Pizza Planet truck in the parking lot, and yes the A113 license plate - they're all there. Even Square gets some love with the Dissidia toy display. Kingdom Hearts has always had a fine attention to detail, but this one really takes the cake. The remixes of past songs playing on the battlefield, including Hand-in-Hand and Atlantica's battle theme, were so much fun.
I'd look at something on the screen and wonder "can I interact with this?" and the answer was yes. From swinging on hanging toy displays to kicking loose screws around in the vents, to knocking stuffed animals on the floor -- and even a particularly wonderful interaction with a tank of helium that I recommend you discover for yourself when the game is out. Another thing I really enjoyed was struggling to figure out the name of the possessed doll you fight at the end of the demo. (It's Mysterious Onyx.) My favorite part of the demo was discovering a rock'em sock'em robots game that you can play in the store, quite by accident. At that point, a few people had hovered around our table and when they had seen me approach it and initiate a fight, there was a unified gasp.
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The cut scenes were the best we've seen in the series by a long shot. The only thing I was really unenthusiastic about was how flat Woody sounded, but it wasn't too distracting for me. Haley Joel Osment's Sora is now at a much more natural level, and he's never sounded better. The music, as always, is fantastic. I said a couple of days ago that if You've Got a Friend in Me was the field music that I would be happy, and it is! Graphically, the only hang-ups I had were that Xehanort has some weird texture issues going on, and there is some weird dappled kind of artifact on some of the shadows. I hope that gets straightened out. On the pro, the frame rate seemed to be unlocked but seemed to stay consistently in the 45 FPS range, if I had to guess.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the game so far. It's got its issues, and still has a way to go before release, but things are looking good. Kingdom Hearts III plays very much like the next logical step in the KH series. An HD JRPG without a lot of the problems that held the past games back. If you've enjoyed the past games in any capacity, I'm very sure you're going to enjoy your time with III.
But those were just my thoughts. All this week we'll be covering the event, so stay tuned!
Thanks to Square Enix for inviting us, and to Disney for taking the time to chat with us.
Follow Kingdom Hearts Insider on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr for the latest updates on Kingdom Hearts Union X[cross], Kingdom Hearts III, and all things related to Kingdom Hearts!
COMMENTS
Re: KH3 Premiere Part 2: PJ's Demo Impressions
The ice cream tasted weird? Interesting. I tried making it once and to me it tasted like vanilla ice cream with a salty aftertaste. Maybe I did it wrong, lol.
Yeah, the version they had at the event matched the color perfectly, but it was not salty at all. It was creamy and tasted mostly like vanilla, but the texture was more icy than a creamsicle.
Re: KH3 Premiere Part 2: PJ's Demo Impressions
I have a question regarding magic. We know using different Keyblade transformations changes magic. How does the magic change when using the Mirage Staff?
Re: KH3 Premiere Part 2: PJ's Demo Impressions
Thank you for taking the time to write these impressions. I'm definitely hoping the full game will have much more fluid and fast-paced attacks than the demo.
| The Keyblade felt incredibly heavy, and the rapid gameplay we've seen in other trailers just wasn't there. |
Somewhat concerning, but then again it's just a demo. Nothing is final. I'm sure they'll polish the game to improve everything. Remember Final Fantasy XV's demos? What a shit show lol.
Re: KH3 Premiere Part 2: PJ's Demo Impressions
Could they be really implementing a slower, more sluggish Sora in the first part of the Olympus world for story reasons in form of his lost powers from DDD?
That would be the first time I think they actively bring in a handicap in gameplay since KH 1's wooden sword episode in Hollow Bastion.
Re: KH3 Premiere Part 2: PJ's Demo Impressions
Ahhhh there it is, the USEFUL feedback. I had noticed a few of the streamers seemed to be fighting a little slowly, but tbh they were people I don't consider to be the sharpest tools in the shed so I chalked it up to them being dim. Looking back at those same videos after reading this, I can definitely see what you mean and I hope they address input lag (or make an official announcement regarding intentional difficulty).
Re: KH3 Premiere Part 2: PJ's Demo Impressions
Yeah, the version they had at the event matched the color perfectly, but it was not salty at all. It was creamy and tasted mostly like vanilla, but the texture was more icy than a creamsicle.
Well it sounds like they cared more about the shape than actually making it taste good lol. Like when I made it it was hard to mold into that shape but oh well, it tasted really good. And I did still dye it blue-ish green.
Re: KH3 Premiere Part 2: PJ's Demo Impressions
Could they be really implementing a slower, more sluggish Sora in the first part of the Olympus world for story reasons in form of his lost powers from DDD?
That would be the first time I think they actively bring in a handicap in gameplay since KH 1's wooden sword episode in Hollow Bastion.
This line of reasoning is just silly. They gotta fix up the default Keyblade combat. The devs would not make the game CONTROL WORSE for story reasons, especially when this dev team is notorious for similar issues in the past. It's not for story. It's just unpolished.
Re: KH3 Premiere Part 2: PJ's Demo Impressions
I’ve a question; did anyone over at the event ask anyone from Square these questions:
-What is the possibility of a Studio Ghibli world anytime in the series?
-Have you ever come across the many KH mock-up world pictures throughout DeviantArt?
-What was the reason for Wreck-it-Ralph being a summon?
-Does Jessie appear at all in the Toy Box?
-Why was Nomura wearing a Stark Industries shirt?
-Are you familiar with the Fire Emblem series?
-Can you give more depth-even somewhat of a hint-to the plot of the Monsters Inc. world?
-Will characters from The World Ends with You return in the series, 3 or not? If so, will there be any new characters?
-Do you have even a hint available that Radiant Garden, Destiny Islands, or Castle Oblivion will be playable worlds?
-Spirit Dream Eaters have been shown to return through the Link with Meow Wow. Will Nightmares return in any way?
Re: KH3 Premiere Part 2: PJ's Demo Impressions
We did not have unmitigated access to the devs. We also weren't thinking about studio ghibli when we had an hour and a half to play.
Re: KH3 Premiere Part 2: PJ's Demo Impressions
I’ve a question; did anyone over at the event ask anyone from Square these questions:
-What is the possibility of a Studio Ghibli world anytime in the series?
-Have you ever come across the many KH mock-up world pictures throughout DeviantArt?
-What was the reason for Wreck-it-Ralph being a summon?
-Does Jessie appear at all in the Toy Box?
-Why was Nomura wearing a Stark Industries shirt?
-Are you familiar with the Fire Emblem series?
-Can you give more depth-even somewhat of a hint-to the plot of the Monsters Inc. world?
-Will characters from The World Ends with You return in the series, 3 or not? If so, will there be any new characters?
-Do you have even a hint available that Radiant Garden, Destiny Islands, or Castle Oblivion will be playable worlds?
-Spirit Dream Eaters have been shown to return through the Link with Meow Wow. Will Nightmares return in any way?
If the mods knew the answers to any of those questions they would have posted them days ago, lol.
Re: KH3 Premiere Part 2: PJ's Demo Impressions
Nice to hear there's a depth of world exploration to look forward to. It sounds like a lot of it is pretty diversionary, though; I wonder if there was any puzzle solving or kind of active navigation built directly into the level design (referring to Toy Box)? I don't mind the fun side stuff at all, but one of the things that made KH1 so great was that few worlds ever felt like long strings of Heartless battles between cutscenes: there were things like the Bizarre Rooms in Wonderland and the dungeons in Hollow Bastion which really changed up your interaction with the environment and made you think about how you were going to progress from one place to the next.
Re: KH3 Premiere Part 2: PJ's Demo Impressions
Nice to hear there's a depth of world exploration to look forward to. It sounds like a lot of it is pretty diversionary, though; I wonder if there was any puzzle solving or kind of active navigation built directly into the level design (referring to Toy Box)? I don't mind the fun side stuff at all, but one of the things that made KH1 so great was that few worlds ever felt like long strings of Heartless battles between cutscenes: there were things like the Bizarre Rooms in Wonderland and the dungeons in Hollow Bastion which really changed up your interaction with the environment and made you think about how you were going to progress from one place to the next.
They held your hand a bit through that. There were moments that could have been more puzzley, like jumping through the fans in the vent at the right time to get to the next area, but the characters spoke through the whole thing.
Re: KH3 Premiere Part 2: PJ's Demo Impressions
They held your hand a bit through that. There were moments that could have been more puzzley, like jumping through the fans in the vent at the right time to get to the next area, but the characters spoke through the whole thing.
That's a shame. I was worried about this when they introduced a similar concept with Aqua pointing out obvious elements of the environment in 0.2. I'm a mostly functioning adult with a full time job and everything, let me figure out how to play my video game. :(
Re: KH3 Premiere Part 2: PJ's Demo Impressions
-What is the possibility of a Studio Ghibli world anytime in the series?
www.kotaku.com.au/2017/08/gkids-takes-over-us-studio-ghibli-distribution-from-disney/amp
Looks like that's never going to happen, Disney gave up their American distribution rights on Studio Ghibli feature films. Makes sense considering that they're focused on Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm.
Zettaflare
May 22, 2018 @ 06:16 pmOffline