Kingdom Hearts III is coming. It is coming slowly, but there is no denying that its slow glacial journey towards release is impacting the entire industry. Every scrap of information is analyzed frame by frame. Every interview is pulled apart word for word by every website and podcast that even thinks about video games.
It has been a very long time since the release of Kingdom Hearts 2. It has been so long, in fact, that many parents with young children might not have any idea what the game is all about.
Sora, Donald, and Goofy will be at it again… someday!
For those in need of a definition: Kingdom Hearts is a franchise built around the unlikely pairing of Disney characters like Mickey Mouse, Aladdin, and Donald Duck alongside characters from the Final Fantasy series like Cloud, Squall, and Auron. These characters embark on a quest that takes them through multiple worlds all themed after different Disney films.
Each game in the series has brought with it new experiences themed after different Disney properties. We battled evil with Steamboat Willie. We helped solve problems in the Hundred Acre Wood. We even hunted for treasure with Aladdin. But, things are a little different now. Disney has gone on a significant spending spree in the last handful of years. The recent purchases if Marvel and Lucafilm properties provides fans with a lot of possibilities for new adventures, heroes, and villains.
This has caused a lot of speculation regarding the potential inclusion of Marvel superheroes and Star Wars characters in the series. All of this speculation reached a high point recently when Tai Yasue, the game’s director, was quoted as saying “nothing is off limits” by Kotaku UK.
The possibility of visiting Tattooine, Manhattan, or Asgard is pretty awesome. Many of these characters would fit very well in a story about multiple worlds besieged by an evil force. It wouldn’t even be that hard to bolt the Kingdom Hearts fiction onto the Marvel interpretation of the Yggdrasil World Tree myth.
Personally though, I have a feeling that the most impactful addition to the game is going to be the all but guaranteed inclusion of the world of Frozen. Anna and Elsa are characters that seem like they were almost for this type of adventure. Also, Elsa is arguably the most powerful character in Disney history. A showdown between Elsa and Maleficent in a Kingdom Hearts game would be quite the sight. It would probably end up being the fantasy battle of the century (at least for me) and the increased power of the PS4 and Xbox One would result in a very pretty fight to watch.
She’s as COOL as ICE!
Maleficent is a bad, bad sorceress!
VS.
What about you? What worlds would you like to see make an appearance? Sound off in the comments!
