MathewKumar
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This got missed in the holiday shuffle but is definitely worth talking about: Square Enix has announced there will be another instalment in its perennial favourite series Kingdom Hearts. There are already ninety billion previous games in the series making up several millennia worth of play time, but, um, 3D!
"With the tenth anniversary of the series on the horizon, the current Kingdom Hearts saga is approaching its climactic conclusion. The story of this game will serve as the opening chapter of the final conflict, and, as always, will be full of surprises. In order to best implement this element of surprise and discover new realms of possibility, we have chosen Nintendo 3DS as our platform. With its revolutionary new game system, this title will not only be a bold, exhilarating tale of adventure, but also a first look into the future form of the Kingdom Hearts series,” said Tetsuya Nomura, director of the series.
I imagine Kingdom Hearts fans might have felt a little flutter in their hearts (their... kingdom hearts?) when they heard "climactic conclusion" but then felt better when they noticed the word "current" and then mentions the future form of the series. Which I imagine is an entirely different squad of anime moppets hanging with Mickey and Donald and that.
So, in Dream Drop Distance then, "King Mickey and Yen Sid prepare for an impending threat by putting Sora and Riku through the Mark of Mastery exam."
That means you can play as "the two most popular characters of the franchise" Sora and Riku (in an updated look, apparently) and there's apparently a ton of new creatures in the "Sleeping Worlds" split into two categories, Spirits and Nightmares, and you can recruit them (over fifty) as allies to fight alongside Sora and Riku.
But of course you want to know: what Disney worlds are appearing in the game? You'd think there would be no new worlds left to explore, and they're... well to be hoenst they're sort of scraping the barrel for debuts, with the one they can mention so far La Cité des Cloches from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I've never even seen it!
Square Enix promise "this is a big step forward in the series," something it seems far too early to say. There's no specific release date for 2012 yet, so expect more details after E3 most likely.
