Some TGS 2011 Details in Regards to KH

Ok, let's make this quick. Glee Project is at 8, Big Brother at 9 and I have to fit in as much Pottermore wonderment as possible before school starts tomorrow (NOT looking forward to that). And yes, I finally got my email for Pottermore! :D Ravenclaw, if you must know, and my wand is elm with unicorn core, fourteen and a half inches, quite bendy. Ok, none of that is relevant...

Perfectly honest? Not a lot of KH news has surfaced in the past two weeks, not even a full translation of that Dengeki interview (I just know there's more tantalysing information hidden in all that kanji...) However, I can't think of anything to say for a Theory post and I can't be bothered to do another Analysis one just yet. Believe you me, I will after TGS, don't worry.

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Ok, so Square Enix has revealed a couple of days ago (August 26th) that, along with Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance being playable at Tokyo Game Show this year (September 15-18), there will also be a private screening showing something pertaining to the game. This screening will be open to 80 members of the public chosen randomly from Japanese Square Enix members that apply for it. (Source: KH13.com)

Also, today Squeenix have launched DDD's TGS site. It's rather sparse at the moment, but Shamedo and MisuzuKamio at KHInsider forums have translated the note-worthy three lines above the pic with Sora and Riku. (We already had this shot before, but this one is of higher quality and not a watermark in sight. Score!)

"Darkness becomes Light, Light falls into Darkness."

"A title for Nintendo 3DS in the Kingdom Hearts series!"

"The videogame on the show floor will be the world's first experience, please come visit us!"

There will be a new trailer and it will be playable on the show floor.

The first line is the game's tagline as seen on its official website, but is still insanely mysterious and intriguing. Does it mean Sora will fall to darkness during the MoM Exam, or when they're groping around inside him for the data that DiZ left behind? Does it mean Sora at all? It could be about Riku trying to unleash his full darkness, but ends up extinguishing his light instead. ...No, I think it means Sora. Or at least Sora and Riku. Or just the state of the worlds? Will more worlds be falling to darkness i.e. the Realm of Darkness? Deary me, confusion all round. Meh. Hopefully TGS might shed some more light on the issue. Or confound us all so utterly and completely with the bizarre convolutedness of DDD that we just forget it altogether. Whatever.

The second bit is obvious, so excuse me for not commenting further on it.

Now, the last bit? AWESOME. A playable trailer thing for the plebs on the show floor?! Pretty much a guarantee of shaky footage aplenty to be leaked onto YouTube in no time at all. Result! I wonder if it's gonna be the same demo thing that guy got to play in that Famitsu interview a while back... Y'know, the one that said there's gonna be new enemies and two 'surprising' party members in Traverse Town or whatever? That'd be damn exciting, right there. Yes, it'd be the same demo, but what an awesome demo it would be! We could actually find out what these new enemies are/at least look like and just who these party members are. However, this is just speculation on my part. The thing the guy played was a demo, whereas this translation says 'trailer'. Could be completely different, which is also awesome. I mean, a trailer after 9 months of nothing footage-wise whatsoever will be insanely epic/mighty appreciated. Hopefully Squeenix will keep their promise and get the official footage up online ASAP. I've no idea how fast they'll put it up, though. Is a coupla hours too ambitious? I like to keep my hopes down to avoid them being lowered forcefully by disappointment.

Now, remember that first bit of news? The one about a private screening for 80 lucky folks? Sure ya do. It just became a lot more exciting. I doubt they'd show the same footage on the show floor and then again behind closed doors. It's gotta be something different... Maybe it is a playable demo on the floor and a proper trailer at the screening? It has to be something to do with DDD and not BBSv2 or anything like that because their announcement definitely said DDD, rather than just KH. Yeah, I think a trailer/demo combo is most likely. In any case, 'twill be epic, sure.

I wonder if we're 'just' getting the trailer or whatever, though. Like, d'you think Tetsuya Nomura (game director/KH dictator) will give anymore plot details? I...don't want that, to be honest. Details on gameplay would be awesome, or on the general mechanics of the game. A vague release date (possibly the season/month for Japanese release) would be insanely amazing and cause me to simultaneously squee and die with anticipation. However, I want this game to stay as vague as possible. Though I only got into KH last summer, legend speaks of a time before BBS when a plethora of news was unleashed unto the world on a monthly basis, allowing the fans time to piece together the entire plot before it even came out. I reeeeaaaaally don't want that to happen with DDD, lest I may be forced to go hermit and forego the internet until its release in Europe. I hate going hermit... But yeah. TGS will be awesome. FACT.

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...Aaaaaaaaaand, I think that's all I wanted to say on that.

tl;dr: Well, this post was short enough, nothing to really abridge... Em, TGS will be awesome and brimming with KH goodness. ...Yeah.

Oh, just letting ya know, I won't be posting again in exactly two weeks as, according to my calendar, that'll be on the day before TGS. No point blathering on about nothing when an explosion of news is set to go off over the coming few days, is there? 'Course not. I'll post something after, instead, so watch out for that.

Also, as mentioned previously, school starts tomorrow (boo). This means I'll prolly have less time for KH amazement. Bothersome. I'll probably have to start updating on the weekend instead, maybe less frequently... Stupid reality, interfering with the awesomeosity of the virtual world known as the internet...

Well, Glee Project's on. Love me ma reality TV... Far more than I should, it has to be said.

Laters.

Nomura/Kitase Dengeki Interview (DDD Info, 'HD Test') - 11 August 2011

Hey, my computer's all better. Hurray! Time to report on KH goodness...

So, in the 500th issue of Dengeki Playstation (big magazine in Japan) they had an interview with Yoshinori Kitase (KH Producer) and Tetsuya Nomura (KH Overlord) about various Square Enix titles, including Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance. As the title of this update implies, this issue came out a while ago, on August 11th. I've been waiting this long to write junk about it because, to the best of my knowledge, a full translation has yet to surface. However, overviews of the interview have come out, which is awesome. If a full translation comes out...I dunno, I'll probably just update this post. So, yeah. Onwards, I guess.

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Ok, this first one comes from andrissang, so thanks! (I've taken out the bits pertaining to Final Fantasy and unrelated shizz 'cause, hey, I'm only required to ramble on about KH.)

"...In this week's Dengeki PlayStation (as summed up at Sokuho@Hokanko), Tetsuya Nomura reveals that the company plans on having playable versions of Final Fantasy XIII-2, Final Fantasy Type-0, Kingdom Hearts 3D and Theatrhythm Final Fantasy.

...TGS should end up being our first chance to get hands-on time with Kingdom Hearts 3D and Theatrhythm."

AWESOME. JUST AWESOME. Aw, first hands-on with DDD! Brilliant... Oh, TGS stands for Tokyo Game Show, basically Japan's E3 and starts September 15-18. I really wanna know how the whole control scheme works in DDD and how easy it is to manoeuvre Sora and Riku around the place. Are they in light show mode the majority of the time, or is it just a limited power-up kinda thing like Drive Forms in KH2? I'd say it's the former, what with Nomura always going on about how this game will have 'bold action' or whatever... And I'd say people will be taking videos left, right and centre of the gameplay and junk. Aw, excitement all round, lads! First smackeral of gameplay since the trailer all the way back in January... The ecstasy within my very core is over-whelming right now, I don't even know where to start.

"Joining the playable titles, Square Enix will have its usual Open Megatheater showing the latest game footage. Nomura hopes to release the footage from this online as soon as possible (you'll recall that they managed to do this last year, much to everyone's surprise.)"

And the excitement continues. Not only will there (most probably) be shaky, bad quality footage from various camera phones, but also official, high quality wonderment from Squeenix themselves. Awsome sauce! I've no idea how fast it went up last time, but hopefully it'll go as smoothly this time round as well.

"Nomura had some strong words for KH3D, saying that its quality is at the level of a console game. The motions that were shown in the game's trailers have been fully realized, right down to running on the walls. KH3D will have the flashiest motion of the series thus far, he promised."

The urge to squee is friggin' brobdingnagian right now and I am not even joking. ._. We already knew that DDD would be the quality of a console title, but it's always wondrous to hear it again. And running up walls?! YES PLEASE. We saw wall jumping with Riku in the last trailer in January (i.e. the only trailer), which is epic in itself, but we're getting running on walls as well?! Aw, I need to see this for myself. September can't come soon enough. (No student should ever, EVER say that, but at this point the only thing on my mind is TGS wonderment. (Not that I'm actually able to go, mind.)) From what we've seen so far, DDD is indeed looking spendiferously flashy. I can't wait to see what else we'll be able to do... As I said before, from how the game is being described, it seems like the spectacular light show awesomeness will probably be the majority of the gameplay and not just a power-up kinda thing. I know I'm gonna suck at it, but I honestly don't care.


"The development schedule for KH3D has reached high pitch, Nomura said. He hopes to release it as soon as possible following the start of the new year."

O_O Doth my eyes deceive me?? Has my extremely optimistic prediction come true?! YYYEEEOOOWWW! Excitement has officially reached fever pitch, people! Exclamation marks abound!! Aw, early 2012 release... That's epic, right there. Sooo, if Japan gets it early Q1, let's say, maybe the rest of the world will start getting it mid-late Q2, early Q3? I think that's fair.

Also, in the last interview in July, Nomura said something about localization. Wait, lemme get it here... "...Right now I’m telling Disney about the scenarios, but it’s hard for them to understand it all at once. I’m explaining the reason and the established connections for each mystery one by one. It’s difficult since their approval is necessary to move forward with localization ..." I know it's not a concrete confirmation that they have definitely for sure started localization, but the fact he was talking about it that early, when the game was only 40-50% complete... I'm not saying they'll release the Elsewhere-versions on the same day as Japan or anything, but methinks that if they have indeed started localization already, then a shorter gap between the Japanese and Elsewhere releases shouldn't be completely out of the question. At least shorter than the gap for Birth By Sleep, which was ridiculous (9 months - yikes.)

"The interview also touched briefly on the future of the Kingdom Hearts series. Nomura admitted that it's become difficult to get new players into the series at present. This is one thing they're hoping to address as part of the series' 10th anniversary. One part of this plan is some sort of "HD technical test" for the series."

Veeeeeery mysterious indeed... See, this is why I wanted to wait for a full translation of the interview, just to get a slightly more accurate wording. I know that with translating some of the wording is bound to be off but... Anyway, what on earth is a 'HD technical test'?? Is it just seeing how easy it would be to configure earlier titles into HD for a HD collection? A HD collection would certainly fit the 'make it easier for new players to join in' part... But 'HD technical test' is such a confusing term for something pretty simple. A lot of people are taking this as a definite confirmation of a HD collection for the 10th anniversary (which is 2012, by the by), but I don't think it is. I think that, at most, it's just seeing if KH1 and 2 (maybe Re:Chain of Memories and possibly BBS?) can possibly be turned into HD, whether to see what KH3 will be like or too see how viable a HD collection is. If it was just 'Yep, we're doing a collection. Definitely,' then surely he'd say that, right? Ugh, I'm confused. :c But, at the same time, cautiously optimistic. A HD collection would definitely help new players get into the series, so hopefully...

Also, am I the only one that read "...one thing...as part of the...10th anniversary...one part...'? Sooo, there's gonna be more? This makes me happy. Very happy indeed. Roll on KH goodness in 2012! I've no idea what else they could do, but I hope it isn't all Japan-exclusive... Also, if there is a HD collection in the works, I sincerly hope it'll include junk from the Final Mixes (super awesome mega versions of the games only released in Japan). That reminds me, d'you think DDD will get a Final Mix? To date, no other Nintendo console'd KH game got one. But BBS did, and that was a handheld KH game that had a story on par with that of a numbered title, as is DDD... Hmm. Meh. Off topic.

Ok, onto the next overview-thingy I could find. This is from duckroll at NeoGAF, so thank you ever-so-much!

"In the big interview with Nomura, Dengeki talks to him about various developments in the current games he's involved in. They also talk about the Kingdom Hearts series. There are some interesting tidbits there. Nomura talks about how development on KH3D is progressing rapidly, but their schedule is pretty tight. He wants the game to have the quality of a console title, without compromising just because it is on a portable. He also mentions that the game is mostly up and running now, and it looks great. The motion and animation is supposed to be particularly impressive because of the various flashy moves you can do, such as Sora's wall jumping. He says the game is supposed to have the most impressive character movement in gameplay in the series so far, and honestly since it's from the BbS team, I believe him completely.


He also talks about the 10th Anniversary of Kingdom Hearts, and how their priority right now is to finish KH3D, but he is also thinking about other things. One element he is concerned about is how hard it is for new gamers to enter into the KH series. This inaccessibility for the series is something they are currently investigating, to see how they can introduce new gamers into the series in a better way. Another thing they are looking into is HD technology for the series. They are evaluating the options they have carefully.


As for when KH3D will be out, he says there is nothing to announce at the current moment, but he is definitely aiming to release the game not too far in the future. It sounds like he wants to release it by early 2012 if possible. KH3D will be playable on the TGS show floor."

Yeah, so pretty much the exact same junk. Just wanted to have another source. :D

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Are you excited yet? YOU SHOULD BE OMAIGAWDTHISISSOFRIGGINEPICIMSOEXCITED. Very much so.

tl;dr: Nomura's hoping to get DDD out for as soon as possible after the new year. DDD will be playable at TGS in September. It's looking rather swish and swanky. The 10th Anniversary is next year and they're planning awesomeness accordingly. One part of this is looking at the HD capabilities of older games.

So, yeah. If a full interview comes out, I'll prolly put it here somewhere. Oh, I'm also thinking of updating this blog dealy-o just fortnightly now, instead of weekly. Weekly is hard. :c I'll run out of theories and junk to analyse fairly soon if I do that, so I won't. Fortnightly it is! For the moment, anyway. I may get bored with that, too...

Unrelated Junk: I'm still waiting (im)patiently for my Pottermore Welcome email. I hope it comes before school starts; I wanna clock up some good hours first before school saps all my  strength and bothered-ness for life! :C Meh, whatevs. It'll come. Preferably sooner rather than later, though...

...Laters.

Naminé Theory

Jeez, been a while since my last dose of Kingdom Hearts-centric blathering, eh? Sorry, my computer has been acting stupid and can't find the internet access point dealy-o even though every other electronic device in the entire house can. -.-" I'm actually only up this early anyway (half 8-ish am) because it's the second day of Pottermore madness and I missed it yesterday, so... I got up at 7:40am specifically and it's still not up for today. >:[ I want me ma early access to Potter goodness, dagnabbit! ...Yeah, boring unrelated drivel over.

Time to get on with boring yet related drivel! Huzzah! So, in the past week-and-a-half-ish, there has been no news. Bothersome. So instead of doing another analysis thingy for a random KH-vid (due to my being on my sister's laptop at the mo and not being able to find the volume...), I thought it might be fun for a theory post. Specifically, a theory post relating to Naminé, one of the most mind-screwing characters in the entire series because of her mere existence. Hilarity ensues. (This entire thing is rather SPOILER if you haven't played BBS yet, so go do that first. Also, I've already posted this before on the forums at KHInsider, so some repetition is bound to occur. Considering I haven't changed the theory at all, and whatnot.)

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So, Naminé. Just...what? She's supposed to be Kairi's Nobody, but she's obviously special-case considering Kairi's still there, along with her body, soul and heart. So, what's left over for Naminé? Personally, as I shall explain, I think she shares more in common with Vanitas than a regular Nobody in terms of what she is made of, as in I believe her to be a shard of Kairi's heart in a similar vein to Vanitas being a shard of Ven's heart. Confusing, huh? Onwards to the theory!

KHI, Sora stabs himself with the Keyblade of People's Hearts. This releases Kairi's heart, turns him into a Heartless and sends his body and soul off to Twilight Town along with Ven's heart to form his Nobody Roxas. Fun times. Now, Naminé was also formed amidst all this confusion. Basically, I'm thinking that Sora accidentally tore off a small shard of Kairi's heart in the process of releasing it and that this shard went off to Castle Oblivion to form Naminé. Sora was using the Keyblade of People's Hearts (the one formed from six of the seven Princesses of Heart), which unlocks a person's darkness. Kairi, being the last PoH, has no darkness. Maybe that Keyblade has another effect on a heart of pure light and merely tears it a bit? I think that's...possible, right? Certainly by KH's standards of logic, at any rate.

Now, you may be disagreeing with me already. 'How can Kairi be up and at it between KHI and II without a bit of her heart? When Ven's heart was split, he was sent into a coma. Explain THAT, Random Fangirl on the Interwebs!' And indeed I shall, Imaginary Interwebs Complainer Guy! (...Man, I am NOT articulate this early in the morning. Damn you, Pottermore and your lack of punctuality!) Kairi and Ven were in a very different set of circumstances at their respective heart-shearing. Ven had just been fought by a huge pack of Neoshadows and was on the brink of death, thus rendering him a lot weaker at the time than Kairi, whose heart had been chillin' inside Sora for a good while at that stage. Ven was also about 11 at the time, whereas Kairi was 14. Not a significant difference, but enough to be noted... I'm also thinking that Naminé would have been a very small shard. DiZ said in the Secret Ansem Reports that she was an "extremely unstable being", whereas Vanitas was around for four years before the main events of BBS, which seems fairly stable to me. Naminé being a smaller shard would probably have put less strain on Kairi and prevent her going comatose again. However, I think that the most significant difference is that Master Xehanort forcibly ripped Ven's heart out of his body and tore off the darkness. Ouch. However, according to this theory, the shard of Kairi's heart would have already been taken off before it returned to her body, meaning she didn't have to go through that pain and perhaps saving her from staying in a coma. Also, she's a Princess of Heart. They're always doin' crazy stuff. ...Yeah, I dunno.

Continuing. Naminé is obviously something of Kairi because at the end of KHII she returns to Kairi, not Sora or anyone else. If she was just an entity of nothingness born out of a loophole, she wouldn't have had to return to anyone at all. Naminé had to have borrowed something of Kairi's and needed to return it. Now, we know Naminé can't be anything to do with Kairi's body or soul, due to those being comatose a short distance away when Sora stabbed himself. The only thing of Kairi's involved in the whole stabbing shenanigan was her heart. Therefore, it makes sense that Naminé was formed from her heart. Kairi wouldn't have woken up without her heart, so Naminé can't be the entire thing. Rather, I think she's just a shard that projected its own body. We know that this can happen in the KH-universe due to Vanitas's entire existence. So far, so plausible.

Now, similarities between Naminé and Vanitas. Let's start with appearances, shall we? Again, I'm on my sister's laptop at the moment, and I am awful at all things laptop, so sorry for the lack of pretty pictures. :c You know what they look like anyway. First, Vanitas. Black hair, amber eyes, black outfit with bits of red... Very 'dark'-looking, if you ask me. Fitting, considering he is the darkness of Ven's heart. So now we know that people made from shards of other people's hearts look like what the shard is made of. Or something. In stark contrast we have Naminé with blonde hair, blue eyes and a plain white dress. Of course, Kairi is a PoH, so her heart has no darkness. This means that were a shard to be taken from her heart, it would be made of light. Naminé seems very 'light'-looking. Coincidence? Could be. But for the sake of this theory, I THINK NOT! Yes, I realize that my logic is basically 'Naminé looks like a light shard, ERGO Naminé IS a light shard.' Don't worry, there's more damning evidence to come.

Moving swiftly on to personality. Vanitas is cruel, sarcastic, cunning and pretty much evil. Again, very 'dark'. His personality reflects him being a composition of a dark shard of Ven's heart. Slightly more articulate than last time, but still not making much sense... Anywho, Naminé is very different. She's remorseful, innocent, humble, fragile... Very 'light' to me.

Next up, emotions. Regular ol' Nobodies can't feel emotions, which further proves that Naminé ain't no ordinary Nobody. She obviously can feel, one of the most prominent examples being when she cries as she puts Sora into his pod-thing at the end of Chain of Memories. You need to have a heart to feel emotions, or at least a shard. Vanitas shows that even a shard of a heart has feelings; the Unversed are, after all, negative emotions. So, Naminé feeling emotions can be easily explained if she's a heart shard. Theory's still good!

Onwards to the shakier bits of the theory. First off, why was she born in Castle Oblivion? When Vanitas was created, he was intentionally extracted from Ven's heart, meaning he was just there in the Keyblade Graveyard. However, Naminé? She was more of a by-product, completely unintentional. DiZ kept saying in the Secret Ansem Report that the only thing Naminé had in common with a regular Nobody was the way in which she was born; that is, when a heart left a body (Kairi's from Sora's). When Nobodies are born, they get whoosed off to a world in the Realm of In-Between, neither light or darkness. CO just so happens to be one of those worlds. Maybe that's why she was born there? As for why she was born in CO specifically, I don't think there has to be an answer, but let's go for one! Maybe Kairi's connection to Aqua, after she cast the protection spell on her, is what made Naminé show up in Aqua's home town Land of Departure, which is now CO. Maybe Kairi's heart became connected to Ven's when they were roomies in Sora's, thus connecting Kairi to CO, etc. But again, I don't think the specific world Naminé's born in really matters, just the fact that she was born in the Realm of In-Between.

Now, why did Naminé have control over Sora's memories? ...Yeeaahh, I got nothin'. Well, Vanitas had control over the Unversed, which are negative emotions. Emotions come from the heart, which Vanitas is a shard of. Maybe being a heart shard gives you special heart powers? Memories are also stored in the heart, which could have given Naminé memory-powers. I reeaally don't like that explanation, though; far too...loose, I guess, and very ass-pull-ish. Why would being a heart shard suddenly give you super powers? I never really understood the Unversed though, or quite how Vanitas was able to make them...

Anyway, why did Naminé have power over Sora specifically? Well, she was born through Sora. ...*cough* Again, I have no clue. Her shard may have connected with Sora's heart when leaving his body, thus granting her memory-morphing powers... What I never got with Naminé is why she also had power over Donald and Goofy's memories as well and having to put them into those pods to restore them after CoM. I think I remember someone saying that Naminé had power over Sora's memories and those close to him. I have literally no explanation for that, not even an ass-pull. Well, maybe one. Sora is supposed to be the key that connects everything, so maybe by connecting with his heart Naminé was connected to everyone else as well. ...Ugh, I dunno.

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And on that optimistic note, I think I shall take my leave.

tl;dr: I think Naminé is a light shard of Kairi's heart in a similar vein to Vanitas being a dark shard of Ven's. Savvy?

Jeez, this one took me forever to write. I've been stealing my sister's laptop on and off for the past three days just to finish this... I have my early registration place thing for Pottermore, by the by, which is AWESOME. Still have no idea what Pottermore is, exactly, but I still want to get in first. :3

Laters.