Massively Multiplayer: Gaming In The New Millennium
- Thread starter RySenkari
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Strange one. but i wonder if Namco x Capcom still happens here. It did come out in 2005 otl. Whilst the gameplay is a bit lacking, i've always enjoyed the crossover plot. Maybe it'll be on Katana and we could get Sega in there, giving us a sort of early Project x Zone.
Summer 2004 (Part 15) - Kingdom Hearts
Kingdom Hearts
Kingdom Hearts is a role playing game co-developed by Squaresoft and Disney that brings together characters from both companies and also incorporates original characters and an original storyline. Like IOTL, the game is directed by Tetsuya Nomura. In Kingdom Hearts, characters roam freely through massive 3-D worlds, exploring, finding treasure, and fighting enemies. Unlike OTL's game, however, TTL's Kingdom Hearts does not feature an action-RPG battle system, but instead features a turn-based battle system that works like an evolved version of the system found in the Chrono and Fairytale games. Initially, Kingdom Hearts was to have an action RPG battle system like IOTL, but that was scrapped after it was determined that such a battle system would make the game too similar to Rareware's already established The Dreamers series, particularly Dreamscape, which features an action-RPG inspired battle system almost identical to that of OTL's Kingdom Hearts. The battle system in TTL's Kingdom Hearts has Sora and his companions encountering enemies and then touching them to begin a battle, although some encounters can take place just by wandering into a pre-scripted area (like in Chrono Trigger). Once in combat, Sora, Donald, Goofy, and sometimes a guest character will take turns attacking, based on an Active Time Battle system bar. Donald, Goofy, and the guest character can be programmed to act on their own by the player, or the player can choose their actions manually, somewhat like OTL's Final Fantasy XIII. The player can act as soon as their ATB bar crosses Level 1, or they can choose to wait and build up a stronger attack, a special attack, or can bank their attack bar to save for later in order to use a combination attack (like OTL's Xenogears). There are also timed attacks and blocks and evades that the player can use. Unlike in OTL Kingdom Hearts, damage numbers appear after attacks to show how many hit points worth of damage has been done. The battle system is actually quite dynamic and complex, and moves very quickly, the player is rarely stuck waiting on an attack, and enemy attacks happen in real time. This makes for a combat system that, while turn-based, still plays in many ways like an action RPG system. Squaresoft would expand upon this idea in the later Final Fantasy XI. Like IOTL, Sora receives experience points and munny, and occasionally items, when enemies are defeated, with leveling up allowing him to learn more abilities and gain stat bonuses (many of the same sword techniques and abilities from OTL's Kingdom Hearts are in the game, with dynamic timed commands in battle replacing the movement abilities learned IOTL's game). Like IOTL's game, Kingdom Hearts features plenty of voice acting. Because Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII were voice acted ITTL, those actors reprise their roles in Kingdom Hearts, freeing up the celebrity voice acting budget for the original characters and Disney characters. Sora, Kairi, and Riku all appear in the game, in largely the same roles they were in IOTL, though their actions during the course of the series will at times significantly differ from OTL's game. Daryl Sabara, famous for his role in the Spy Kids films, voices Sora (Disney attempted to get Haley Joel Osment, but he was too busy with other projects), Daveigh Chase, who dubbed the voice of Chihiro in the North American dub of Spirited Away, voices Kairi, and Shia LeBeouf, who had been filming Odd Jobs for the Disney Channel, voices Riku. Robin Williams would return to reprise his role as the Genie (initially he wasn't going to do it but Nintendo begged him to), and others like James Woods (Hades), Megan Mullaly (Olga, the Snow Queen), and Ming Na (Mulan) would also reprise their Disney character roles. The Gummi Ship returns as the means for moving between worlds, with a bit more of a Star Fox feel to it. Yoko Shimamura would comprise the music, as IOTL, and the game's graphics are among the best in a Nintendo Wave game (or any console game), to date, outstripping the graphics in OTL's Kingdom Hearts 2 and in some ways even approaching the quality of the OTL PS3 remaster. TTL's Kingdom Hearts has two versions of the same theme song, performed by different singers. The song is called "The Light From My Heart": in the Japanese version, the song is performed by Hikaru Utada in Japanese, while in North America the song is performed in English by Courtnee Draper (who IOTL is an established pop singer at this point, having moved on from a brief acting career).
Like IOTL, the game begins on Destiny Island, where Sora, Kairi, and Riku live in peace, training and playing games with each other. TTL's game expands on the Destiny Island segment somewhat: it's not a full out and out world, but we do get to spend a bit more time with the trio, learning about each of them, their hopes and dreams (they all want to be adventurers), and their motivations for getting off the island. Like IOTL, there are some kid versions of Final Fantasy X characters hanging out on the island with them, and also kid versions of Chrono, Marle, and Lucca from Chrono Trigger (there will also be cameos from the Mana and Fairytale franchises at points during the game, mostly in Traverse Town but also in other places). Eventually, however, the island is invaded by darkness, and the three are separated. Sora ends up in Traverse Town, meets Donald and Goofy (and a few Final Fantasy VIII and Mana characters) and eventually learns about the Keyblade, keyholes, and the destiny of the Keyblade wielder. Then, it's off to his first Disney world. Just as in OTL, Sora, Donald, and Goofy will come to explore numerous worlds in their search for Kairi and Riku (and King Mickey). Some worlds are from OTL's game, others are entirely new. The eight Disney worlds explored are:
Wonderland: Just as IOTL, Sora must navigate his way through the tricky Wonderland world to save Alice and defeat the Queen of Hearts. This world is probably the most similar to OTL's, including the Trickmaster boss at the very end.
Olympus Coliseum: Olympus Coliseum returns from OTL, and is a bit expanded: Megara shows up here along with Hercules, as in OTL Kingdom Hearts II. After Sora does some training and goes one on one with Hercules, he eventually has to help defeat the Hydra (unfortunately, "get up on the Hydra's back" does not make an appearance ITTL). Like IOTL's game, Sora can return here throughout the game to take on challenges, including a battle at the very end with Sephiroth.
Land Of Dragons: The Land Of Dragons, Mulan's world, shows up in the first game this time around, and once again, Sora gets Mulan as a guest fighter. There's no Storm Rider boss here, instead, after a number of small quests where Sora helps Mulan to become a soldier, the heroes battle Shan Yu on the roof of the Emperor's Palace to close out the world.
Atlantica: The Little Mermaid's world returns from OTL, with Ariel as the guest character. Sora and his friends battle their way through a series of quests that are a bit more exploratory in nature than IOTL, before eventually doing battle with giant Ursula, much like OTL's final battle for this world.
Treasure Island: Treasure Island, from the animated film of the same name, shows up ITTL and somewhat replaces both Monstro and Neverland. Sora starts out on a ship, helping Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver fight off a bunch of Heartless, culminating in a fight against an evil ghost heartless who tries to wreck the ship. Of course, once they arrive on the island, the real trouble begins, as Long John Silver tries to gain the power of the island's treasure, which is a massive amount of pure heart energy. He abducts Jim's friend Sarah, forcing Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Jim to pursue Long John Silver to the cave where the treasure is and battle him in a swashbuckling boss fight to rescue Sarah and liberate the pure heart energy.
Agrabah: Agrabah is the next world, another world making an appearance from OTL's game, and this world culminates in a battle with sorcerer Jafar and then genie Jafar in the Agrabah Palace. Genie shows up quite a bit more than IOTL, and Robin Williams does some really excellent work, making the Agrabah world a fan favorite.
Frozen Realm: The Frozen Realm is the Snow Queen's domain, in which the evil Snow Queen Olga has frozen everything over and has abducted the young boy Kai to serve as her son. Kai's friend Gerda implores Sora and friends to journey into the queen's realm and battle the Snow Queen to win Kai back. The Frozen Realm is really battle heavy, with lots of ice powered Heartless and two boss fights: one against the Ice Titan, which Maleficent and the Snow Queen have "borrowed" from Hades to guard the Queen's castle, and then a fierce fight against the Snow Queen herself. Kai is saved, and the world's heart is reclaimed, though it comes at a steep price: the abduction of Gerda, one of the Seven Princesses of Heart (along with Kairi, Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Belle, and Jasmine)
Enchanted Dominion: The seat of Maleficent's power after she cast the curse that sent the realm into an eternal slumber, this world somewhat replaces Hollow Bastion (in that Maleficent is fought here rather than there ITTL). Sora and friends must first save Prince Phillip, and then team up with him to save Aurora from Maleficent, who first sends Riku to battle Sora, then attacks them herself, first as a sorceress and then as a dragon. Maleficent's defeat causes her to implore her "master" for more power, but he rebukes her, causing Maleficent and then Riku to disappear into the void. Sora can see an ancient city in the void, but he must first learn how to reach it by returning to Destiny Island, where three keyholes seen there at the first part of the game can now be opened.
Maleficent's master is Exaltia (voiced by Idris Elba), an ancient knight and the last living member of an organization known as the Order of Darkness. Exaltia and his knights used to be members of the ancient Round Table (based on the classic King Arthur myth), charged with protecting the realms and the pure-hearted royalty from harm. But Exaltia became convinced that the pure hearts of those he was sworn to protect were steeped in lies, and sought to use ancient magic to uncover the darkness within people's hearts. In doing so, he created the Heartless, and when his fellow knights tried to stop him, he took their hearts and sealed them away. Exaltia's kingdom is now the City Of Ruin, a castle of pure darkness from where he directs the Heartless to infect all realms with their evil.
City Of Ruin: Sora and friends make their way into the City of Ruin to find Exaltia. They run into the Beast along the way, who is looking for Belle, who was taken here with the other Princesses of Heart. Eventually, Sora battles his way through to Exaltia himself. He seeks to make Riku his knight follower and offers to make Sora one of his knights as well, but Sora turns him down. After battling Riku once again (who has been transformed into a Heartless Knight), Sora is able to free Riku's heart from Exaltia's influence, and next battles Exaltia himself, who takes on three forms during the final battle before finally being defeated for good. Though the battle is won and though the Princesses of Heart are free, Riku and Mickey have both gone missing, as IOTL. Sora knows there are more mysteries to uncover, and sets out to find Riku with Goofy and Donald at his side. However, this time, Kairi is seen picking up a keyblade as well, desiring to go on her own adventure as she sets out to find companions of her own.
The response to Kingdom Hearts is generally positive: the battle system is praised as an excellent evolution of the traditional ATB battle system and a good way to mix turn based combat with action gameplay. The use of Disney worlds and characters is also praised, though the game is criticized for being a bit too straightforward and predictable. Fans enjoy the game as well: sales are high in North America, Europe, and Japan, and it's considered one of the biggest commercial hits of the year and well worth the wait after a four year development time. Tetsuya Nomura is immediately asked to direct another Kingdom Hearts game, though rather than going the portable route, Squaresoft wants him to develop another title for the Nintendo Wave. This will ultimately force Nomura to trim some material from the sequel, streamlining his intended plot, in which he hopes to expand on Exaltia's kingdom and his fellow knights. Ultimately, Kingdom Hearts is seen as one of the year's best RPGs, and proves to be one of the most popular games of 2004.
Kingdom Hearts is a role playing game co-developed by Squaresoft and Disney that brings together characters from both companies and also incorporates original characters and an original storyline. Like IOTL, the game is directed by Tetsuya Nomura. In Kingdom Hearts, characters roam freely through massive 3-D worlds, exploring, finding treasure, and fighting enemies. Unlike OTL's game, however, TTL's Kingdom Hearts does not feature an action-RPG battle system, but instead features a turn-based battle system that works like an evolved version of the system found in the Chrono and Fairytale games. Initially, Kingdom Hearts was to have an action RPG battle system like IOTL, but that was scrapped after it was determined that such a battle system would make the game too similar to Rareware's already established The Dreamers series, particularly Dreamscape, which features an action-RPG inspired battle system almost identical to that of OTL's Kingdom Hearts. The battle system in TTL's Kingdom Hearts has Sora and his companions encountering enemies and then touching them to begin a battle, although some encounters can take place just by wandering into a pre-scripted area (like in Chrono Trigger). Once in combat, Sora, Donald, Goofy, and sometimes a guest character will take turns attacking, based on an Active Time Battle system bar. Donald, Goofy, and the guest character can be programmed to act on their own by the player, or the player can choose their actions manually, somewhat like OTL's Final Fantasy XIII. The player can act as soon as their ATB bar crosses Level 1, or they can choose to wait and build up a stronger attack, a special attack, or can bank their attack bar to save for later in order to use a combination attack (like OTL's Xenogears). There are also timed attacks and blocks and evades that the player can use. Unlike in OTL Kingdom Hearts, damage numbers appear after attacks to show how many hit points worth of damage has been done. The battle system is actually quite dynamic and complex, and moves very quickly, the player is rarely stuck waiting on an attack, and enemy attacks happen in real time. This makes for a combat system that, while turn-based, still plays in many ways like an action RPG system. Squaresoft would expand upon this idea in the later Final Fantasy XI. Like IOTL, Sora receives experience points and munny, and occasionally items, when enemies are defeated, with leveling up allowing him to learn more abilities and gain stat bonuses (many of the same sword techniques and abilities from OTL's Kingdom Hearts are in the game, with dynamic timed commands in battle replacing the movement abilities learned IOTL's game). Like IOTL's game, Kingdom Hearts features plenty of voice acting. Because Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII were voice acted ITTL, those actors reprise their roles in Kingdom Hearts, freeing up the celebrity voice acting budget for the original characters and Disney characters. Sora, Kairi, and Riku all appear in the game, in largely the same roles they were in IOTL, though their actions during the course of the series will at times significantly differ from OTL's game. Daryl Sabara, famous for his role in the Spy Kids films, voices Sora (Disney attempted to get Haley Joel Osment, but he was too busy with other projects), Daveigh Chase, who dubbed the voice of Chihiro in the North American dub of Spirited Away, voices Kairi, and Shia LeBeouf, who had been filming Odd Jobs for the Disney Channel, voices Riku. Robin Williams would return to reprise his role as the Genie (initially he wasn't going to do it but Nintendo begged him to), and others like James Woods (Hades), Megan Mullaly (Olga, the Snow Queen), and Ming Na (Mulan) would also reprise their Disney character roles. The Gummi Ship returns as the means for moving between worlds, with a bit more of a Star Fox feel to it. Yoko Shimamura would comprise the music, as IOTL, and the game's graphics are among the best in a Nintendo Wave game (or any console game), to date, outstripping the graphics in OTL's Kingdom Hearts 2 and in some ways even approaching the quality of the OTL PS3 remaster. TTL's Kingdom Hearts has two versions of the same theme song, performed by different singers. The song is called "The Light From My Heart": in the Japanese version, the song is performed by Hikaru Utada in Japanese, while in North America the song is performed in English by Courtnee Draper (who IOTL is an established pop singer at this point, having moved on from a brief acting career).
Like IOTL, the game begins on Destiny Island, where Sora, Kairi, and Riku live in peace, training and playing games with each other. TTL's game expands on the Destiny Island segment somewhat: it's not a full out and out world, but we do get to spend a bit more time with the trio, learning about each of them, their hopes and dreams (they all want to be adventurers), and their motivations for getting off the island. Like IOTL, there are some kid versions of Final Fantasy X characters hanging out on the island with them, and also kid versions of Chrono, Marle, and Lucca from Chrono Trigger (there will also be cameos from the Mana and Fairytale franchises at points during the game, mostly in Traverse Town but also in other places). Eventually, however, the island is invaded by darkness, and the three are separated. Sora ends up in Traverse Town, meets Donald and Goofy (and a few Final Fantasy VIII and Mana characters) and eventually learns about the Keyblade, keyholes, and the destiny of the Keyblade wielder. Then, it's off to his first Disney world. Just as in OTL, Sora, Donald, and Goofy will come to explore numerous worlds in their search for Kairi and Riku (and King Mickey). Some worlds are from OTL's game, others are entirely new. The eight Disney worlds explored are:
Wonderland: Just as IOTL, Sora must navigate his way through the tricky Wonderland world to save Alice and defeat the Queen of Hearts. This world is probably the most similar to OTL's, including the Trickmaster boss at the very end.
Olympus Coliseum: Olympus Coliseum returns from OTL, and is a bit expanded: Megara shows up here along with Hercules, as in OTL Kingdom Hearts II. After Sora does some training and goes one on one with Hercules, he eventually has to help defeat the Hydra (unfortunately, "get up on the Hydra's back" does not make an appearance ITTL). Like IOTL's game, Sora can return here throughout the game to take on challenges, including a battle at the very end with Sephiroth.
Land Of Dragons: The Land Of Dragons, Mulan's world, shows up in the first game this time around, and once again, Sora gets Mulan as a guest fighter. There's no Storm Rider boss here, instead, after a number of small quests where Sora helps Mulan to become a soldier, the heroes battle Shan Yu on the roof of the Emperor's Palace to close out the world.
Atlantica: The Little Mermaid's world returns from OTL, with Ariel as the guest character. Sora and his friends battle their way through a series of quests that are a bit more exploratory in nature than IOTL, before eventually doing battle with giant Ursula, much like OTL's final battle for this world.
Treasure Island: Treasure Island, from the animated film of the same name, shows up ITTL and somewhat replaces both Monstro and Neverland. Sora starts out on a ship, helping Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver fight off a bunch of Heartless, culminating in a fight against an evil ghost heartless who tries to wreck the ship. Of course, once they arrive on the island, the real trouble begins, as Long John Silver tries to gain the power of the island's treasure, which is a massive amount of pure heart energy. He abducts Jim's friend Sarah, forcing Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Jim to pursue Long John Silver to the cave where the treasure is and battle him in a swashbuckling boss fight to rescue Sarah and liberate the pure heart energy.
Agrabah: Agrabah is the next world, another world making an appearance from OTL's game, and this world culminates in a battle with sorcerer Jafar and then genie Jafar in the Agrabah Palace. Genie shows up quite a bit more than IOTL, and Robin Williams does some really excellent work, making the Agrabah world a fan favorite.
Frozen Realm: The Frozen Realm is the Snow Queen's domain, in which the evil Snow Queen Olga has frozen everything over and has abducted the young boy Kai to serve as her son. Kai's friend Gerda implores Sora and friends to journey into the queen's realm and battle the Snow Queen to win Kai back. The Frozen Realm is really battle heavy, with lots of ice powered Heartless and two boss fights: one against the Ice Titan, which Maleficent and the Snow Queen have "borrowed" from Hades to guard the Queen's castle, and then a fierce fight against the Snow Queen herself. Kai is saved, and the world's heart is reclaimed, though it comes at a steep price: the abduction of Gerda, one of the Seven Princesses of Heart (along with Kairi, Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Belle, and Jasmine)
Enchanted Dominion: The seat of Maleficent's power after she cast the curse that sent the realm into an eternal slumber, this world somewhat replaces Hollow Bastion (in that Maleficent is fought here rather than there ITTL). Sora and friends must first save Prince Phillip, and then team up with him to save Aurora from Maleficent, who first sends Riku to battle Sora, then attacks them herself, first as a sorceress and then as a dragon. Maleficent's defeat causes her to implore her "master" for more power, but he rebukes her, causing Maleficent and then Riku to disappear into the void. Sora can see an ancient city in the void, but he must first learn how to reach it by returning to Destiny Island, where three keyholes seen there at the first part of the game can now be opened.
Maleficent's master is Exaltia (voiced by Idris Elba), an ancient knight and the last living member of an organization known as the Order of Darkness. Exaltia and his knights used to be members of the ancient Round Table (based on the classic King Arthur myth), charged with protecting the realms and the pure-hearted royalty from harm. But Exaltia became convinced that the pure hearts of those he was sworn to protect were steeped in lies, and sought to use ancient magic to uncover the darkness within people's hearts. In doing so, he created the Heartless, and when his fellow knights tried to stop him, he took their hearts and sealed them away. Exaltia's kingdom is now the City Of Ruin, a castle of pure darkness from where he directs the Heartless to infect all realms with their evil.
City Of Ruin: Sora and friends make their way into the City of Ruin to find Exaltia. They run into the Beast along the way, who is looking for Belle, who was taken here with the other Princesses of Heart. Eventually, Sora battles his way through to Exaltia himself. He seeks to make Riku his knight follower and offers to make Sora one of his knights as well, but Sora turns him down. After battling Riku once again (who has been transformed into a Heartless Knight), Sora is able to free Riku's heart from Exaltia's influence, and next battles Exaltia himself, who takes on three forms during the final battle before finally being defeated for good. Though the battle is won and though the Princesses of Heart are free, Riku and Mickey have both gone missing, as IOTL. Sora knows there are more mysteries to uncover, and sets out to find Riku with Goofy and Donald at his side. However, this time, Kairi is seen picking up a keyblade as well, desiring to go on her own adventure as she sets out to find companions of her own.
The response to Kingdom Hearts is generally positive: the battle system is praised as an excellent evolution of the traditional ATB battle system and a good way to mix turn based combat with action gameplay. The use of Disney worlds and characters is also praised, though the game is criticized for being a bit too straightforward and predictable. Fans enjoy the game as well: sales are high in North America, Europe, and Japan, and it's considered one of the biggest commercial hits of the year and well worth the wait after a four year development time. Tetsuya Nomura is immediately asked to direct another Kingdom Hearts game, though rather than going the portable route, Squaresoft wants him to develop another title for the Nintendo Wave. This will ultimately force Nomura to trim some material from the sequel, streamlining his intended plot, in which he hopes to expand on Exaltia's kingdom and his fellow knights. Ultimately, Kingdom Hearts is seen as one of the year's best RPGs, and proves to be one of the most popular games of 2004.
While I'm hyped that this finally came out, I'm also disappointed that ttl kingdom hearts didn't keep the action rpg system. It's been my preference for rpgs since brave fencer musashi. Still, here's hoping for Shia lebouf to get a far better shakedown ittl.
Well, there are some nice action RPGs coming in 2005... actually, 2005 might end up being the Year Of The Action RPG....
Just for starters, there's Reverie Of Mana, Full Metal Alchemist, and Kameo: The Dreamer...
I loved that update. KH is looking nice. I enjoyed having Square cameos other than ff. Looks like we could be up for a different KH 2 plotwise. Also KH 2 (?) coming so soon to the Wave is a shock, a nice shock tho.
On the one hand I'm disappointed that Kingdom Hearts ITTL won't be the beautiful clusterfuck of a plot it is IOTL it seems, on the other hand that is ultimately probably for the best. On the third hand, all the jokes about Kingdom Heart's convoluted plot will be gone.
Also sucks it's no longer an Action RPG ITTL but it still looks great, also means that perhaps Atlantica wasn't shit ITTL.
Also sucks it's no longer an Action RPG ITTL but it still looks great, also means that perhaps Atlantica wasn't shit ITTL.
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I was hoping for Link in there like we had been teased with all those updates ago. But it still looks great.
It'll probably be 2007 before we get Kingdom Hearts 2, which would actually be about the same length of time between the first two games IOTL. So yeah, it's about on par with OTL's schedule. Squaresoft desperately wants to get two Kingdom Hearts games on the Wave.
It may end up that way later on, but for now, Squaresoft wants to stick to consoles and the main series. We may start to see the spinoffs coming post Kingdom Hearts 2, depending on that game's performance. Kingdom Hearts 2 will definitely be more convoluted than the first game but that was always a given.
It's actually possible that there could be an action RPG spinoff, or something like OTL Crisis Core on a handheld. We'll have to see.
No Link, but Xenogears does show up as a summon! (You have to beat a very difficult optional boss fight to earn it though)
Actually, to bring up @AeroTheZealousOne's earlier question, did we get an answer as to whether Mythbuster still exists ITTL? And, if no, what its cast are doing instead?
Oh that's cool! Mechs and Disney is a fun mix. As for Link. Awh well. There's always next time
. I honestly don't mind if he's in at all. Just seemed like a fun idea.Looking back, there was a Peter Pan world talked about early on here. Was it cut?
Cut for the Treasure Island world.
And about Mythbusters, please wait until later on to find out if that show still exists and what the cast is doing, just looking to focus on other things in the TL for the time being and I don't want to give a rushed answer ^_^;;;
Will Shou Tucker, the worst father in the history of humankind, make an appearance in the game?
Gendo Ikari. Your argument is invalid.Will Shou Tucker, the worst father in the history of humankind, make an appearance in the game?
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