Kingdom Hearts has become an exceptionally popular video game franchise thanks to its exciting gameplay, beautiful art style, incredible music, memorable characters, and inclusion of Disney worlds and characters. Fans from all over have expressed how excited they are for the upcoming and long-awaited Kingdom Hearts 4.
With all the teases, advertising, and overall hype around this new game, it’s impossible to not feel extremely excited. As a long time fan of the video game series, it’s been bouncing around my brain a lot lately. Because of this, here are my thoughts on everything about Kingdom Hearts 4 we’ve been able to see so far.
The Art Style
The first and most noticeable element from all the teases and advertising Disney and Square Enix have shown is the game’s art style. It’s very different from the previous games, at least when it comes to the human characters who aren’t from Disney movies, like Sora and the Organization XIII members. Instead of them being colorful and more cartoony, they appear more realistic.
The art and animation look absolutely incredible. That being said, it’s an odd choice. I personally prefer Sora’s previous designs. He doesn’t look bad in the Kingdom Hearts 4 footage by any means, it’s just so pointlessly drastic of a change. It’s also not as fun of a design as before. It looks good for this version of Sora, I just prefer what he looked like previously.
At first, it looked like he would only have this realistic form in the world of Quadratum, but now that we’ve gotten our first look at Sora in the world of the movie Coco, we know he’ll be “realistic” throughout, which is a bit of a bummer.
The Story
We’ve also gotten a glimpse at where the story is and where it’s going. At the end of Kingdom Hearts 3, Sora sacrificed himself in order to save Kairi. Now, he’s somewhere in the afterlife. Is that what Quadratum is? Only time will tell. Until then, it seems like this newest installment will focus on the afterlife. Goofy and Donald are searching for Sora in the Underworld, but Hades says he’s not there. The first Disney world revealed is the Land of the Dead from Coco.
If the game will follow an adventure through worlds featuring some sort of afterlife, it makes one wonder what other worlds could be used to approach this. Force ghosts in Star Wars? Dr. Facilier’s “friends from the other side” in The Princess and the Frog? It will be exciting to see. It’ll also be cool to see how this all relates to the bigger conflict at hand.
The Gameplay
As someone who’s a big fan of the gameplay and combat of Kingdom Hearts 3, it’s really exciting that it looks similar in this next game. It looks like incredible and unique combat on a grand scale with insane combos and abilities, and it looks like a blast. It doesn’t entirely look like the Kingdom Hearts 3 combat system, though. It looks like it’s got some abilities from Kingdom Hearts 2 and some newer stuff in there. The gameplay overall looks smooth and fun.
Mobile Game Characters
Fans of the Kingdom Hearts mobile games can rejoice, because characters who have only appeared in them so far will be joining the mainline games with Kingdom Hearts 4. It’s a cool way to bring various parts of this rather in-depth lore together. That being said, those phone games aren’t even accessible anymore, so it’s something that could isolate audiences who aren’t familiar with them. The only way they could have it all work is with extensive explanations in the new game or by releasing a collection of those mobile games.
Playable Donald, Goofy, and Mickey
The usual gang is separated this time around. While it’s unfortunate that Sora, Donald, and Goofy won’t be a party like usual, it looks like everyone is present and will be a part of the adventure. Donald, Goofy, and Mickey will all be playable, at least to some extent, throughout the game. Judging by the glimpses of gameplay featuring these Disney icons, they will play differently from Sora and will be a lot of fun to play as. It’s currently one of the main features I’m most excited for.
Kingdom Hearts 4 is shaping up to be a great game. I have the feeling it’s going to be a special gaming experience.
Nonstop Nerd 