First Look at Beat and Joshua & Funky DDD Site

I'll try to keep this short. I got a lotta work to do. BUT there's a lot of KH goodness as well, and I don't want to have to recap it all before Jump Festa begins... Anyway.

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Ok, Josh-Josh and Beat. GO. (Pic from Jump, thanks to KH13 and KHInsider for the tip!)

Perfectly honest? When I first heard that we got a pic, I was all 'ZOMFG BEAT AND JOSH IN THE VIRTUAL 3D FLESH YAY'. But then I saw it and I was like '...Hm.' I...I just...it just looks awkward, imo. Beat looks ok, but sadly Joshua didn't fare so well. His hair is just so utterly...poofy, y'know? Like I know that it should, but this seems a bit like overkill. But it's not really his hair that bugs me the most, but rather his face. However, I shall assume that this awkwardness is just due to the fish face he is currently exuding. Although I seriously wonder why they would pick a screen with fish face as the first freakin' look at Joshua...

Whatever. Imma just go with the facts that we haven't seen Beat nor Josh in motion yet (I didn't fall in love with Neku's extra dimension until the first Sora gameplay vid from TGS, after all) and the fact that they chose a fairly godawful screen. Should be better at Jump Festa, where I assume that they'll be showing off Josh and Beat in a trailer or whatever.

Now, what Beat is saying in this screen is fairly interesting. (Translated by Oishii of KH13!)

This time I will protect Rhyme.

Veeeery interesting, wouldn't you say? The whole 'This time' bit? The way I see it, he's referencing a time when Rhyme protected him *cough*WeekOneDayFour*cough* and now he's returning the favour or he's referring to a time when he didn't save her and now he wants to fix it. This could either be from when Beat and Rhyme joined the game, when that REALLY SHOCKING thing happened on Week One Day Four, or whatever magical event has transported the TWEWY cast to Traverse Town in the first that had some sort of negative effect on Rhyme.

Oh, Rhyme is Beat's sister, by the by. This kid.

And now ya know. So I'm thinking that Rhyme won't be chillin' with the main cast in Traverse Town, but rather is stuck in whatever situation she's gotten herself into until Beat comes to help her. We'll prolly see her during the end of TT's plot, and almost definitely in the credits of DDD. I think.Maybe. I love how connected they're making the TWEWY plot to the KH plot, unlike with some of the FF characters when it's just like 'Oh, by the way I live in Radiant Garden now.' Yeah...

NO TIME TO DWELL. NEXT BIT OF NEWS. And dear Lord, is it hefty...

The official site for DDD has been launched and BY JOVE IT IS AMAZING. BASK IN ITS GLORY, DAMMIT. Takes a while to load, but OH SO WORTH IT.

First thing you might notice, the new version of Dearly Beloved playing. SO PRETTY. Aw, it starts all slow, but then it gets brighter and almost gypsy folk-like... Take a listen.

Aw, so good...

Now, something else that is likely to have piqued your interest is the little Drop Gauge in the bottom right corner.

(In case you can't get onto the site right now, I'll be posting pics like this. YOUR WELCOME.) It has Sora's face at the end, the cursor is a Keyblade, the site is very pink... However, you will notice the gauge draining. When it gets to the end, the site changes and...

...we get Riku now. Riku's face, a predominantly blue and black colour scheme, Way to the Dawn as the cursor... Just awesome. What's even more awesome is when you click the Drop Gauge. It drains the gauge completely and shows a super special awesome ultra special sexy transformation sequence in which...

...we see Riku suspended in midair as the camera closes in on his back, everything goes white and the site goes back to Sora. Click the gauge again...

...and the same thing happens with Sora. Neato. Considering the quality of these sequences, these look like they were taken directly from the game. I guess we now know what the Drop Gauge does, then. Totally called it. It's a countdown timer that switches you between Sora and Riku. Totally nailed it. (Though I still don't see how it can read -008% like in one of the screenshots from however long ago... Maybe that's when the gauge measures something else? Nomura did say that there were a lot of mysteries to the Drop Gauge... Hurray for theorising incoherently!)

Click on the 'Story' tab and you get a page like this.

And the option to scroll down, of course. First line is the tagline of DDD 'When darkness and light are next to each other, light fades to darkness.' Can't wait to see everything that applies to in the game~ Sora and Riku? Sora himself? Xehanort (somehow)?? Possibilites are fun.

Anyway. Translation courtesy of Dark Hearts King on KHInsider Forums!

Every dream exists together --
When you drop into a dream,
Through the dream there exists “a world plunged in sleep”.

And the Inception similarities deepen... This game is gonna be one big mindscrew but it's gonna be an epic mindscrew.

In the beginning of the journey, an engulfed world is reborn.
However, if the rebirth is incomplete, the world will fall into slumber.
When this happens even the heartless can’t penetrate the gateway to the world.
Therefore, instead of heartless there is an abundance of something else.
When a world is plunged into sleep, a different creature exists.

That is a monster who feeds on dreams; Dream Eaters.

Within the Dream Eaters, those who eat dreams, there are Nightmares who plant bad dreams,
and there are Spirits whose goodness devours the bad dreams. That is what we call these two creatures.

Ooh, I like that explanation as to why Heartless won't be around. Maybe 'cause they can't dream. 'Cause they don't have hearts. ERGO DREAMS AND HEARTS ARE CONNECTED. Maybe. I just really wanna be right about that one... I hope there's more elaboration on the existence of Dream Eaters, though. There will be. I can feel it...

For us, the need has come to prepare to fight this threat.
As such, Sora and Riku together will be given a test to become Keyblade Masters.

With every keyhole they open, together they will discover a new power,
and the world will be released from its slumber.
To restore the balance of light, “7” keyholes must be released,
and if the worlds can once more exist anew, they will be recognized as Masters.

This one is interesting. This one is very interesting. New power per world? Awesome. Hopefully its not just metaphorical and you can actually use your newfound Master wisdom while kicking Nightmare ass. But the last line is tres confusing indeedy. 7 Keyholes? Does that mean only seven worlds? So far, we know that Traverse Town, La Cité des Cloches, Pranksters' Paradise and Country of the Musketeers (translated name of Three Musketeers Land) are in the Realm of Sleep. I doubt that Traverse Town would count as having to be uunlocked, seeing as it was unlocked before, it's only a mish-mash of different worlds that has grown its own heart and I want as many worlds as possible.

That means we have three worlds to unlock for definite, with four empty spaces (I doubt any other original world would count either. Maybe Land of Departure...) Anyway. I'm hoping that this doesn't mean that there's only gonna be seven Disney world, tops. It probably does though... As long as its only Disney worlds and not worlds in general, then I s'pose it's ok.

Next tab says 'Characters' and shows off characters. Go fig. So far, only Sora, Riku, Wonder Meow, Needle Lion, Goat Horn, Torpedo Fish, Kuma Panda, Zou Elephant, Dragon Horse, Dokudoku Lizard and Ice Penguin are listed in the Nightmare, Spirit and...Main Character(?) sections according to their species.

As you can see, they're laid out in rows of four. At empty spaces, they just have the KH heart. Some people are fretting over what two characters they've reserved places for beside Sora and Riku. Personally? I think they were just trying to fill up the rest of the row in a prettiful manner. Nothing wrong with that. As more information comes out and as the site is updated, I'd say that other characters will be plonked up here. Same for Spirits/Nightmares.

Next is 'World', where you can select Pranksters' Paradise or La Cité des Cloches.

And might I say that they look lovely. *drools* I love Monstro's pissed off face like 'Why am I in the world logo??' And they're emphasising rollercoasters, which means Free Flow Awesome-itude. Duh. The Festival of Fools in La Cité des Cloches thing looks amazing as well. Click on PP...

...and there's a description as well as some screenshots. We've seen them before, but damn. They look even better now, if possible. O_O Hover over the characters and it gives a short character bio. But it's in Japanese, so. If a translation submerges...yay, I guess. Also HOLY COW THAT LOGO. *drools more than humanly possible* Aw, so much awesome...

And here we got LCdC (lol at incredibly awkwad acronym. Might be as bad as the OWCA in terms of uncool acronyms...) Same kinda junk here, looks awesome. And DAT LOGO.

Then onto the 'Spec' tab and...

...yeah. ...Moving swiftly on to the 'Extra' bit.

Wallpapers. Yay.

There are two other tabs that just say 'Coming Soon'. KH13 did some digging where they shouldn't and found that these will be called 'System' and 'Extra'. I'm guessing the first is for gameplay and junk, while 'Extra' might have trailers or other such things?

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Well that was short. Not much to say, I just wanted to get these things out of the way before Jump Festa.

tl;dr: Joshua and Beat pic, mentions Rhyme. Site is up, looks amazing.

JUMP FESTA IS GOING ON RIGHT NOW AND MY GOD MY BRAIN IS FRIED GAAAAAAAAAH. I'll talk about it later, though. TOO TIRED. Stupid conflicting timezones...

Laters.