Tetsuya Nomura Shares More Details Regarding Kingdom Hearts III

<p>In case you missed it &lpar;and I&&num;8217&semi;m not sure how you would&rpar;&comma; <em>Kingdom Hearts III<&sol;em> was officially announced at Sony&&num;8217&semi;s E3 Conference last week&comma; complete with a debut trailer&period; Now&comma; sure&comma; it may still be a ways off&comma; but that doesn&&num;8217&semi;t mean we can&&num;8217&semi;t get excited&period; Famitsu &lpar;via <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;polygon&period;com&sol;2013&sol;6&sol;19&sol;4444394&sol;kingdom-hearts-3-detailed-by-game-director-tetsuya-nomura">Polygon<&sol;a>&rpar; managed to get a hold of Director Tetsuya Nomura and get some more details about the game&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>For starters&comma; <em>Kingdom Hearts III<&sol;em> picks up where the 3DS title&comma; <em>Dream Drop Distance<&sol;em>&comma; left off&period; Said Nomura&comma; &&num;8220&semi;We&&num;8217&semi;re proceeding along with which worlds we&&num;8217&semi;ll be selecting for the game&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s the final episode in the &&num;8216&semi;Dark Seeker&&num;8217&semi; saga that began with the original <i>KH<&sol;i>&comma; and it&&num;8217&semi;ll depict the final battle with Xehanort&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In the aforementioned debut trailer&comma; you may have noticed that Sora&comma; the Heartless and the rest of the game looked a lot different&semi; this is a result of Nomura and the rest of the dev team trying to decide on how the game should look&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;Should we go for a more realistic look like in recent projects&comma; or try something else&quest;&&num;8221&semi; he said&period; &&num;8220&semi;Along the way&comma; we remembered that these <i>KH<&sol;i> characters were originally paintbrush art from Disney productions&comma; a texture that was one of our original aims&comma; and that it was time to return to that&period; So &lbrack;chief creative director Takeshi&rsqb; Nozue went through a series of tests&comma; and the results are the visuals that we refer to in the team as the Kingdom Shader&period; It may look like a pretty drastic change&comma; but I see it as a rich evolution of everything we&&num;8217&semi;ve shown you up to now&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;final-fantasy-xv-kingdom-hearts-iii-xbox-one&sol;kingdom-hearts-iii&sol;" rel&equals;"attachment wp-att-47560"><img class&equals;"alignnone wp-image-47560" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2013&sol;06&sol;05230530&sol;Kingdom-Hearts-III-1024x595&period;png" alt&equals;"Kingdom Hearts III" width&equals;"614" height&equals;"357" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Nomura continued by talking about the gameplay of <em>Kingdom Hearts III<&sol;em>&comma; which may become &&num;8216&semi;even crazier&&num;8217&semi; that what we&&num;8217&semi;re already used to&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;We have a demo version running on the actual hardware&comma; but the action&&num;8217&semi;s pretty frantic&period; The really bold action we&&num;8217&semi;ve always had is getting even crazier&period; <i>KH3<&sol;i> has three-person parties&comma; but NPCs and other characters join the fight in each individual world&comma; and the resulting action is really flashy and exciting&period; The enemy AI is a lot more intricate&comma; too&comma; and I think the gameplay will reflect that new dynamic balance&period; For example&comma; there&&num;8217&semi;s a foe that&&num;8217&semi;s shaped like a vehicle&comma; and Sora may jump on it and fly around&semi; that&&num;8217&semi;s already implemented&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Kingdom Hearts III<&sol;em> is still pretty early in its development &lpar;as stated in the trailer&rpar; and even Nomura addressed this while talking to Famitsu&semi; even mentioning that the teams working on <em>Final Fantasy XV<&sol;em> and <em>KH3<&sol;em> are well aware of one another&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;They&&num;8217&semi;re constantly honing their work at this point in development&period; Even though <i>KH3<&sol;i> is still pretty early in development&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s already producing some great scenes in Square Enix&&num;8217&semi;s internal conferences&period; We&&num;8217&semi;re discussing new developments never seen in any <i>KH<&sol;i> before&comma; so keep an eye on further updates&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>And this news is all well and good&comma; but when is the next time we could see <em>Kingdom Hearts III<&sol;em>&quest; Well&comma; according to Nomura&comma; the title could appear at TGS in the Fall or D23 in Japan in October&period; So close&comma; but still so incredibly far away&period; But that&&num;8217&semi;s okay&comma; because at least it&&num;8217&semi;s been announced and is being worked on&comma; right&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;