[SPOILERS] Kingdom Hearts 3 - WW Release Thread

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mozzafaralj

SOLDIER Second Class
Apr 12, 2016
300
466
#43
khwiki

kingdom hearts 3

Animated battle sprites
In the D23 Expo Japan 2013 Trailer, Sora and friends' battle sprites are animated. This is not the case in later trailers or the final version of Kingdom Hearts III.

Tram Common
In the D23 Expo Japan 2013, E3 2015, and Jump Festa 2016 Trailers, Sora and friends battle a group of Heartless in the Tram Common, near the Woods. This is changed to the lower portion of Tram Common in the final release.

Playable Mysterious Tower
In the Jump Festa 2016 Trailer, Sora and company battle a group of Heartless outside the Mysterious Tower. While the world itself appears in Kingdom Hearts III's final version, it is not explorable in any capacity and only shows up in cutscenes.

Cutscenes and altered maps
Kingdom of Corona
In the E3 2015 and Jump Festa 2016 Trailers, Sora walks from the cave in the Hills to the Tower before encountering a group of Chief Puff and Puffball Heartless. In the final released, Sora runs out of cave in the Hills and doesn't encounter any Heartless.

In the Jump Festa 2016 Trailer, Sora and company battle a group of Reapers Nobodies near the waterfall near Repunzel's Tower. In the final released, they do not appear here.

Toy Box
In the May Premiere Event 2018 demo build, Rex confuses Donald and Goofy for Yozora's sidekicks, Magia and Aegis.

During a Gargoyles panel at 2015 MomoCon, Greg Weisman revealed that a world based on Gargoyles was initially proposed for the Kingdom Hearts franchise at some point in time, but the idea was eventually scrapped.

It was a conversation between Namine and Lingering Will read out by their voice actors. Sadly, we never get to hear this talk in KH3 and a brief mention of it is made by Namine in a missable cutscene during the Final World where she says she will try to communicate with Terra.
 

mozzafaralj

SOLDIER Second Class
Apr 12, 2016
300
466
#44
phoenixmiko

Another piece of cut content is a script which got read out at the Kingdom Hearts First Breath concert in Japan.
It was a conversation between Namine and Lingering Will read out by their voice actors. Sadly, we never get to hear this talk in KH3. It is my opinion that a brief mention of it is made by Namine in a missable cutscene during the Final World where she says she will try to communicate with Terra. According to the article on this website, this conversation was meant to happen before A Fragmentary Passage. Either this conversation did happen prior to 0.2 (they just chose not to include it in that game) and Namine's plan to talk to Terra in KH3 means she will try to reconnect with him the same way she did before or it really was cut from KH3 and they chose to have her say that she intends to speak to him instead, with the conversation from the script happening off-screen. Link to the news article with the translated script: https://www.khinsider.com/news/SPOI...eep-revealed-during-First-Breath-concert-6805
 
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Likes: Lord_Ham_Mork

Jenova

Keyblade Master
Oct 28, 2013
729
583
#50
It's kinda sad that most of the talk in this thread is about Versus and not about Kingdom Hearts III itself. Is this minor shoutout in a secret ending really the only memeorable thing from the game?
 
Likes: Lulcielid

Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
1,099
1,705
#52
So, I just watched every cutscene in KHIII again, and the thing that really struck me this time is how consistently the game focuses on self-sacrifice and death.

Apart from KHI and BbS, KH's choice of Disney worlds seems to be rather haphazard -- the real story happens in the original worlds, and you get involved in random-seeming Disney plots in between. But, while there's definitely still a lot of filler in KHIII's Disney worlds, there's always a solid thematic hook:

1) Olympus - Herc's big self-sacrificial moment may have already happened in KHII, but it's the reason why Sora goes to Olympus in the first place, and is the reason Herc is able to give Sora the most important hint towards using the power of waking ("with all your heart"). Xigbar also hints at Sora's ultimate fate, questioning the value of risking one's life for others when that will mean others will have to risk their lives for you.

2) Toy Box - The self-sacrifice theme isn't in focus here, but the idea of toys having hearts becomes important later anyway, given the importance of Replicas.

3) Corona - Flynn sacrifices his only known opportunity for healing to ensure Rapunzel won'd sacrifice herself to heal him, and Rapunzel is able to use her healing powers because she is willing to give up everything to save him. This is directly referenced when Kairi guides Sora back after he saves everyone else's hearts (along with a similar scene from Frozen), which makes me wonder if this might be the nature of the powers granted to the New Seven Hearts.

4) Monstropolis - Like Toy Box, the self-sacrifice theme isn't in focus, but the concept of using negative emotions as power is perfect for explaining the presence of Vanitas after his loss in BbS.

5) Arendelle - The key hint in Arendelle's plot -- "only love can thaw a frozen heart" -- refers to Anna's self-sacrificial love for Elsa, not romantic love (as everyone expected). This provides a surprisingly effective parallel to Ven's awakening, which is triggered by Aqua's self-sacrificial willingness to take a fire spell for him.

6) 100 Acre Wood - the key concept here seems to be the idea that what's lost can always be found again, somehow. I initially thought that there had to be more to what happened to Pooh's connection to Sora than what they showed, but on a second viewing, it seems more like it's meant to hint at Sora diving in to save his friends' hearts in the ending.

7) The Caribbean - Death is everywhere in PotC3, and KHIII takes advantage of that. Sora has to help Jack escape the afterlife, then ends up stuck outside the movie's plot until the final kill-or-be-killed showdown with Davy Jones, where Jones flat-out murders Will Turner in front of Sora and triggers Sora's inability to cope with loss for the first time in the game.

8) San Fransokyo - It's impossible to avoid Tadashi's death if you're going to have any meaningful characterization for the Big Hero 6, and Repliku 2 takes the loss theme up a notch by forcing Sora and Hiro to disable the first Baymax and destroy his chip.

Then, of course, once the original worlds start appearing, you've got stuff like the Final World and the Lich (whose attempt to take Sora's lost friends to "the abyss" makes me wonder if that might be KH's equivalent of Hell), MX literally turning Kairi into a human sacrifice to summon Kingdom Hearts, and Sora's choice to use the power of waking improperly knowing that it might cost him everything. Sora telling Xemnas that "pain is just being human" seems related, too.

All in all... KHIII seems rather thematically similar to FFXV...? The primary concerns, at least, also appear to be love and sacrifice.
 

Lord_Ham_Mork

SOLDIER Second Class
Feb 23, 2018
344
587
31
#53
So, I just watched every cutscene in KHIII again, and the thing that really struck me this time is how consistently the game focuses on self-sacrifice and death.

Apart from KHI and BbS, KH's choice of Disney worlds seems to be rather haphazard -- the real story happens in the original worlds, and you get involved in random-seeming Disney plots in between. But, while there's definitely still a lot of filler in KHIII's Disney worlds, there's always a solid thematic hook:

1) Olympus - Herc's big self-sacrificial moment may have already happened in KHII, but it's the reason why Sora goes to Olympus in the first place, and is the reason Herc is able to give Sora the most important hint towards using the power of waking ("with all your heart"). Xigbar also hints at Sora's ultimate fate, questioning the value of risking one's life for others when that will mean others will have to risk their lives for you.

2) Toy Box - The self-sacrifice theme isn't in focus here, but the idea of toys having hearts becomes important later anyway, given the importance of Replicas.

3) Corona - Flynn sacrifices his only known opportunity for healing to ensure Rapunzel won'd sacrifice herself to heal him, and Rapunzel is able to use her healing powers because she is willing to give up everything to save him. This is directly referenced when Kairi guides Sora back after he saves everyone else's hearts (along with a similar scene from Frozen), which makes me wonder if this might be the nature of the powers granted to the New Seven Hearts.

4) Monstropolis - Like Toy Box, the self-sacrifice theme isn't in focus, but the concept of using negative emotions as power is perfect for explaining the presence of Vanitas after his loss in BbS.

5) Arendelle - The key hint in Arendelle's plot -- "only love can thaw a frozen heart" -- refers to Anna's self-sacrificial love for Elsa, not romantic love (as everyone expected). This provides a surprisingly effective parallel to Ven's awakening, which is triggered by Aqua's self-sacrificial willingness to take a fire spell for him.

6) 100 Acre Wood - the key concept here seems to be the idea that what's lost can always be found again, somehow. I initially thought that there had to be more to what happened to Pooh's connection to Sora than what they showed, but on a second viewing, it seems more like it's meant to hint at Sora diving in to save his friends' hearts in the ending.

7) The Caribbean - Death is everywhere in PotC3, and KHIII takes advantage of that. Sora has to help Jack escape the afterlife, then ends up stuck outside the movie's plot until the final kill-or-be-killed showdown with Davy Jones, where Jones flat-out murders Will Turner in front of Sora and triggers Sora's inability to cope with loss for the first time in the game.

8) San Fransokyo - It's impossible to avoid Tadashi's death if you're going to have any meaningful characterization for the Big Hero 6, and Repliku 2 takes the loss theme up a notch by forcing Sora and Hiro to disable the first Baymax and destroy his chip.

Then, of course, once the original worlds start appearing, you've got stuff like the Final World and the Lich (whose attempt to take Sora's lost friends to "the abyss" makes me wonder if that might be KH's equivalent of Hell), MX literally turning Kairi into a human sacrifice to summon Kingdom Hearts, and Sora's choice to use the power of waking improperly knowing that it might cost him everything. Sora telling Xemnas that "pain is just being human" seems related, too.

All in all... KHIII seems rather thematically similar to FFXV...? The primary concerns, at least, also appear to be love and sacrifice.
Good point. But KH don't develop this concept and there's no consequences for death. Is everything really vanilla.
In XV the theme of sacrifice and death has more weight and the characters suffer for it. Which is a more adequate representation of how affects us in reality.
 
Likes: Lulcielid

Lulcielid

Warrior of Light
Oct 9, 2014
3,826
2,826
28
Argentina
#54
Some random thoughts:

KH3 has easily the more engagin opening 2-3 hours of the series, from a gameplay perspective, you inmediately have access to most of the games mechaniques (minus the combos modifiers) as well as not having prolonge sequences of uninteresting tutorials with barebones abilities, big improvement from its predecesors.

If KH2 was infamously know as "smash X to win" then KH3 will be know as "press triangle to win", like seriously, the Situational Commands are insanely spammable at no cost whatsoever (who had the brillant idea of them not costing MP of Focus?). An alternative name would "spam fire to win", that spell is pretty spammable.

I never cared about Gummi-Ship gameplay in franchise at all but it's good that now it has been improved to be less on-rails than before.

More to come later.
 

Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
1,099
1,705
#55
Here's a good shot of the back of the Verum Rex box:
Verum Rex box.jpg

The concept sounds pretty FNC to me, if you swap "Chaos" for "KARMA."

The tagline is clearly based around FFXV's US tagline, too, which makes it pretty clear that "King of Truth" is a direct reference to the English "True King" title for Noctis rather than a dig at FFXV.

Finally, it's really amusing how there seems to be an almost intentional imitation of PSOne localization going on in the wording. (The 8MB memory cards, in contrast, make it seem more like the "PlayPlus" is a PS2.)
 

Leonhart

PSICOM Soldier
#58
Just finished the game and I agree with some points that I read here:

1. Disney Worlds felt like a long filler inside the game, the story really starts in it's last 6-7 hours when Sora goes to Dark World and they rescue Aqua.
2. The game offer so much options in fight that some of them feels unnecessary (Attraction Flow I'm looking to you...)
3. The game is soooooo easy that I can't remember any boss fight that I have lost
4. Verum Rex looks like something with HUGE influence of Versus XIII but I don't think it's a remake or something

The game had it's problems but I really enjoyed it in the end. The end of the Xehanort arc was very good - I admit I was a bit worried about how this story would end after all these years and games. Eraqus showing in the end was unexpected and a really clever plot twist.

And the "Happy Sad Ending" with everyone back (including Xion and Namine) but Sora vanishing was something I was really expecting to see and turned out to be true. I was really satisfied with the ending and the "sacrifice" theme. I thought he was going to have to sacrifice his heart to bring Roxas, Ventus and Xion back but it turned out to be another reason - to rescue Kairi. But to be honest, I know It will not be the end for Sora.

About the Epilogue and Secret Ending, I was really surprised by the real identity of Luxu but I think it's a clever move - we need a new villain after Xehanort departure. I was expecting to the see the Master of Masters in the game too, but looks like he only appears in the Secret Movie chasing the Kingdom Hearts. They are Cleary in Shibuya but for some reason I don't think It's the "Verum Rex Shibuya" but our real world Shibuya.

And I don't think it hints towards a Versus XIII "remake". If it was Nomura wouldn't put all the focus in the "Robot/Mecha" aspect of the world during the Toy Box World. Verum Rex have a LOT of references to Versus XIII but I think it's some type of joke or fan service.
 
Likes: Storm

Leonhart

PSICOM Soldier
#59
Oh, I forgot to mention that Scala ad Caelum was the most frustrating part for me.

I was expecting it to be some type of dungeon or new place to explore - think about a new Hollow Bastion, but it turned out to be only an arena to fight Xehanort.

That place had so much potential and they only used it as a background for a fight.
 
Likes: Storm