When a person's public image becomes skewed or twisted, for good or bad, it is often hard to shake the way they are viewed or looked upon to the outside world. In the world of gaming, Mickey Mouse can be a good example. Ever since he was seen fighting Heartless and Nobodies with his own unique form of justice, Kingdom Hearts fans have never been able to watch the animated television show Mickey Mouse Club House without wondering where his shiny Keyblade has gone (your kid sibling had it on, right? I see).
So, when news of a dark, upcoming Wii game called Epic Mickey hit the web, Kingdom Hearts fans immediately associated it with, what else, the Keyblade wielding Mickey Mouse. The mouse of all mouses was truly epic in Kingdom Hearts II, how could this game be unrelated? But no, it was soon learned that Epic Mickey was not Kingdom Hearts III, but instead, an entirely original game from Disney in combination with legend Warren Spector and his Junction Point Studios. Shock and awe followed.
Keep on reading for more of our analysis of the two games.
While Square Enix lacked any big surprises for Kingdom Hearts fans at E3 2010, they did at least bring a fully translated version of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep with them to the show floor. We checked up on the Square Enix booth to get some more hands-on time with Birth by Sleep, as the last time we had played it was Tokyo Game Show 2009, shortly before the game's Japanese release.
While gameplay feels exactly the same, we were however presented with a choice to play through new segments of Ventus' story, Aqua's story, or Terra's story, and of course, it was all voiced in English. Kicking things off with Ventus' story segment, Ventus is in the middle of chasing down a huge squid-like Unverse (the "new heartless" for Birth by Sleep) through some sort of space worm hole. Ventus is clad head to toe in his knight suit, atop a space surf board of sorts, assumed on a mission to take down the Unverse.
The cutscene becomes gameplay as Ventus attacks the Unverse, allowing the player to dash around on the board as Ventus, slicing and slamming into it. With lock-on it's fairly easy to beat the Unverse, but to little surprise when the screen turns white, the Unverse gets away. Ventus, still chasing the Unverse, winds up in a giant space ship in the Deep Space world, home to Disney's Stitch, of Lilo & Stitch. Stitch is there, but has been captured at gun point, and is being held when Ventus arrives on the ship; when the Alien who captured Stitch leaves the holding area to check up on the new arrival (Ventus), Stitch breaks outs.
Our beloved series has three brand new games in the works. Nomura has stated that two of them are spin-offs, and one is the long anticipated KHIII. There is almost no doubt that Kingdom Hearts III will be for Sony's Playstation 3, but what about the other two games? Where will those be stationed?
Square Enix prevailed in their ongoing quest to dominate every system with a great game for the Nintendo DS, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. The DS worked well for Kingdom Hearts, making it the second Nintendo system that Kingdom Hearts has been on. This begs the question, has Nomura ever considered the Wii for a Kingdom Hearts game?
Logically, this move makes a lot of sense considering how wide-spread Kingdom Hearts is becoming. It is crossing system barriers and still coming out strong. But could the Wii become the downfall of Nomura's conquest?
Tokyo Game Show 2009 played host to a magnitude of PSP games. Outside Microsoft's own booth, there seemed to be a PSP demo kiosk at every turn. Square Enix in-particular knew that Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep for the PSP would be particularly popular among press and show-goers, and devoted rows and rows of tethered PSPs behind a winding waiting-line to showcasing the title. Luckily on the press days the lines were very short, and Gaming Union managed to pick up Square Enix's demo of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep not once, not twice, but thrice.
Three times might sound like a bit overkill, but the demo of Birth by Sleep actually consisted of three different stories to play through, as well as a multiplayer battle mode. Birth by Sleep's three lead characters have one story-based demo each, Ven goes to the Castle of Dreams, Terra goes to Enchanted Dominion, and Aqua takes on the Dwarf Woodlands. The game's presentation was extremely polished, with graphics on-par with Kingdom Hearts 2. Clothing and hair swayed while walking, magic sparkled and wowed, with superb animation to back it all up.
Check out the full story for our complete impressions.
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