First teased a few months ago at this summer's giant gaming convention, E3, we were expecting it to be a bit longer before we next saw a glimpse of the upcoming Disney three-quel Kingdom Hearts 3. Despite having shown a brief trailer alongside their announcement, with no sign of even a release year, yet alone any news of a specific date or new features, our next glimpse of the much anticipated game seemed quite a way away. The love-child of Disney and Final Fantasy, with a focus on action-packed battles, the mere mention of Kingdom Hearts 3 was enough to send fans crazy, with the news that the spiky-haired Sora, Donald and Goofy would soon be gracing our consoles with their travels from Disney world to Disney world, saving the lands that have been ravaged and confused by the game's evil shadowy Heartless enemies as they went (for more on the game's storyline, read our review of the recent HD remake, Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix). We just didn't expect the next news to come this soon.
At the recent D23 expo in Japan (a crazy fan-club-meet-come-conference thing), Disney pulled a rather large rabbit out of their hat with the reveal of brand new, and much more substantial gameplay trailer for Kingdom Hearts 3. Making the sixteen seconds of footage we got at the end of the first reveal trailer look rather pitiful, this new footage is 1:23 of pure geek-out bliss - and it drops a few hints at some new features for the upcoming game.
Uh oh...
Opening with Sora, Donald and Goofy brawling with some familiar-looking Heartless enemies in a town square, initially, everything seems fairly normal, with the spiky-haired protagonist taking a few swings at the baddies using his signature 'Keybalde' weapon, an oversized key-shaped sword. But within seconds, his usual blade seems to morph into a couple of pistol-like things, that can spew fireballs at the Heartless.
Continuing the Disney fan service, the trailer then cuts to Sora and co. riding on a giant swinging pirate ship that appears to been lifted straight from the Main Street Electrical Parade, which suddenly starts spinning round at an incredible rate after Sora hacks at some water, to the point where we're half expecting to have a high-speed Sora come crashing into the camera. Following on from that, the trailer draws to a close in traditional fashion with a boss fight. Only this is no normal boss fight - this is a fight against a giant stone golem with two heads that sees you riding on a Main Street Electrical Parade inspired Big Thunder Mountain mine train. You can see the full encounter for yourself here:
While we're not entirely sure about Sora's new look, we're certainly excited for the next instalment in the winning role-playing franchise - but when we'll actually get to play it is still a mystery. As it's coming exclusively to the next generation Xbox One and Playstation 4 consoles though, we expect it might be quite a time. But seeing as we're still plodding our way through the recent Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix, and with the recently released 2.5 Remix set to launch next year, we're thinking we can probably pencil Kingdom Hearts 3 in for 2015. It seems so far away when we say it like that....
