nickdawgy

I haven’t played since the second one. I never bothered with all the Part 2.8 1/2.36325 remix versions and all that. Am I missing out?

Sonny Corinthos

GameStop called Saturday and said they are allowing people to pick up the game tonight at 9:00 PM.

Obi-Wanma

Is "The Story So Far" on PS4 OOP already, or is it just getting crazy because of the launch of KH3? Looks like they're going for $75 and up on ebay and amazon right now.

mattysemo247

It contains the exact same discs from the other two copies sold, so unless you are dying for that artwork just grab the other two copies.

RichC2

Yeah, I may just buy the All-in-One Kingdom Hearts package on the PSN Store.

redbill

that's what I did on Friday. turns out a few hours each night for 4 days isn't long enough to play through all the previous games (1.5, 2.5, 2.8, 3.14159, e, etc...) in time for Tuesday's launch...

Obi-Wanma

Yeah, I just realized that I already own the 1.5+2.5 disk. Probably picked it up at some sale and then promptly forgot I bought it. So all I need is 2.8, right?

Sonny Corinthos

Noonan

It still hasn't sunk in for me that this game is actually releasing tomorrow. I've avoided all videos and reviews so far. If it cam somehow re-capture the magic of KH2, this will be a real fun ride. I hope they kept some of the deep rpg elements alive.

mattysemo247

Yep, and keep an eye out at places like Best Buy and Target. That's where I picked it up for $15.

E Unit

Well I guess everyone who took the poll was wrong. Wow, 5 years since this tread was started and they announced this at D23.

mattysemo247

According to posts on Reddit, Best Buy is doing a 9pm release tonight, so if you are dying to play it before tomorrow.

Decker

You waited 14 years, what's another 12 hours?
Here's a cool article from The Ringer about this historically-delayed game :

• VIDEO GAMES
• POP CULTURE

Game Never Over: ‘Kingdom Hearts III’ Signals 2019 Is the Year of the Long-Delayed Gaming Sequel

It’s been 14 years since the last installment of the popular series was released. Is this a sign that the video game world is beginning to function more like the movie industry?

By Ben Lindbergh Jan 25, 2019, 8:07am EST

[img]https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nKMdZo22Qgy4KRPHX1QxcrFyIVE=/0x0:3000x2000/920x613/filters:focal(1213x439:1693x919):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/62929543/SequelGames_Getty_SquareEnixCo_Nintendo_Ubisoft_DoubleFineProductions_YSNet_Ringer.0.jpg
On Friday, it finally happened: Kingdom Hearts III came out. Only in Japan, granted, but barring a catastrophe—which wouldn’t be a shock where Kingdom Hearts is concerned—the supremely long-delayed sequel to 2005’s Kingdom Hearts II will arrive worldwide on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One next Tuesday, bringing an end to a path to publication as labyrinthine as some of the series’ game titles (Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue?) and plot points.

Counting mobile, handheld, and browser-based games—but not counting collections and remasters—Kingdom Hearts III is the 12th installment in the Kingdom Hearts series, an action-RPG crossover between Disney and Square Enix (the makers of Final Fantasy) that first appeared on PlayStation 2 in 2002. It took only three and a half years for Kingdom Hearts II to come out, but the next direct console sequel languished in development hell for more than 13 years before proving it wasn’t vaporware. Although the game was officially announced at E3 in 2013, it was in development as early as 2010, and discussions between Disney and director Tetsuya Nomura started as early as 2006.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Kingdom Hearts III’s long-belated release—aside from the fact the game evidently didn’t lose its way during its protracted development—is that the game won’t be the most distant sequel released in 2019. Polygon’s list of 2019’s most anticipated titles, which includes Kingdom Hearts III, also features Shenmue III (18 years since previous installment), MechWarrior 5 (17 years), Psychonauts 2 (14 years), Devil May Cry 5 (11 years), Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 (10 years), Crackdown 3 (nine years), and Rage 2 (nine years),in addition to name-checking two more upcoming sequels that haven’t received release dates, Beyond Good & Evil 2 (16 years) and Metroid Prime 4 (12 years). In keeping with the theme, the best-selling game in Japan prior to Kingdom Hearts III’s street datewas Ace Combat 7, the first entry in the long-running flight-combat series’ central continuity since 2007’s Ace Combat 6.

Some of those as-yet-unreleased games may slip into 2020 or beyond, further increasing the time between sequels. The examples cited above don’t share identical origin stories, but taken together, this barrage of sequels to aged games reflects a few ways in which the video game industry’s current conditions have grown ripe for revivals of long-dormant franchises. In an increasingly crowded and risky market where development costs are constantly climbing, publishers are reaching for recognizable names, even if they’re attached to series that seemed defunct.

Video game data is difficult to come by, so it’s tough to track the incidence of such sequels over time. Although we obtained records from the NPD Group of game releases, grouped by franchise, from 2000 to 2018, pre-2000 data is spotty, and even post-2000 information is challenging to parse for extended absences between related titles, thanks to the plethora of platforms on which games can appear, the presence of spinoffs, and the tendency for remixed and remastered versions of games to appear even in the absence of full-fledged sequels. The distant sequel isn’t solely a 2019 phenomenon: Follow-ups have taken their sweet time in past years, too, from the notoriously long-delayed 2011 shooter Duke Nukem Foreverand the same year’s Marvel vs. Capcom 3to lesser-known examples such as Deception IV (2014), Carmageddon: Reincarnation(2015), and V-Rally IV (2018). But there’s about to be a deluge, and it doesn’t look like a coincidence.

The first, and simplest, reason that so many sequels are arriving so long after the games they follow is that games are getting bigger in scope and size and are taking a ton of time and money to make. “If a AAA game takes three or four years to make when everything goes right, then any delay in starting the sequel, any significant stumble in development, is going to push the sequels that much further out,” says Brendan Sinclair, North American editor of gamesindustry.biz, via email. Last year’s best-selling game, Red Dead Redemption II, came out eight and a half years after Red Dead Redemption and was in grueling development the entire time, suffering three delays. That’s what it took to produce a game with a world of unprecedented detail and enough content for completionist playthroughs to average more than 140 hours.

Kingdom Hearts III is another entry in the “making modern games is complicated” category. KH III took so long to complete, Nomura has explained, partly because technological advances over the course of three console generations demanded a mid-development migration from an internal game engine to the more powerful Unreal Engine 4, and partly because of competition from other Square Enix projects. Nomura himself assisted with multiple Final Fantasy titles during the period between Kingdom Hearts II and III.

Of course, most of the forthcoming distant sequels haven’t been in development for a decade or more; they’re recent projects that arose after a fallow stretch for a franchise. And they’re becoming more common because a series resurrection represents a relatively low-risk approach to the industry’s blockbuster arms race. “It’s a hit-driven business, and the big publishers (EA, Activision, and the like) have been chasing a strategy of fewer, bigger, better titles,” Sinclair says. “And when you’re competing in that space, you either have a megahit you’re constantly refreshing every few years at most, an entirely new thing you’re hoping to make into a big deal (very risky), or you look for money in the couch.”

That last category is where the distant sequel comes in: It’s the product of a known but not-capitalized-on commodity that’s already in a publisher’s portfolio or easily obtainable. A license with a prominent past, Sinclair says, is “something you know already has a fan base to build off of, something that will get attention without you needing to push so hard. Something that is old enough that it could probably benefit from having modern tech and gameplay conventions applied to it.”

That name value is particularly important for big-budget single-player games, a class that contains most of the high-profile distant sequels on the way. That group of games, NPD Group industry analyst Mat Piscatella says via email, is “currently undergoing disruption and competition from the growing strength of service-based multiplayer games such as Rainbow Six Siege, Destiny, Call of Duty, PUBG, and Fortnite [and] the related increase in importance of downloadable content and microtransactions, all of which is being driven by an ongoing shift in why people play, moving away from solitary gaming experiences toward more social ones.”

Couple that with the pressure to make single-player-centric, offline-oriented games enormous and the competition from thousands of new indie gamesflooding Steam and other online marketplaces, and “the likelihood of profitable success, particularly in single-player-focused AAA content, continues to get more challenging,” Piscatella says. That makes minimizing risk more important and increases the temptation to pursue existing IP that might make consumers nostalgic enough to spend.

In that sense, the rash of distant sequels in the interactive realm isn’t unlike the rise of rampant reboots and remakes we’ve witnessed in movies and TV, where a corresponding onslaught of scripted content has put a premium on established brands that stand out against the backdrop of bottomless originals. Hearing about the first MechWarrior release since 2000 may make many gamers think, “Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time”; still, at least it’s a name they’ve heard at some point, and potentially one with positive associations from a formative period in their gaming pasts. That title may be worth a longer look, where another game would get glazed eyes.

Some of the series receiving sequels long after their “ ” countdowns seemed to run out weren’t financial successes; Shenmue, Beyond Good & Evil, and Psychonauts were all commercial duds to different degrees. In the cases of Shenmueand Psychonauts, crowdfunding came to the rescue, demonstrating that an audience existed for sequels to the cult titles, which led directly to successors getting green-lit. Psychonauts raised almost $4 million on Fig, while Shenmue raised more than $7.1 million on Kickstarter and other crowdsourcing platforms, making it the most-funded game in the site’s history and one of the most-funded projects of any kind.

“Crowdfunding has tended to be one of those things that [is] as much a proof of interest for other investors or partners as it is to actually achieve development funds,” Piscatella says. Even $4 million or $7 million won’t cover the whole cost of a major modern game. But it does, Piscatella adds, “show that some number of people out there are willing to put money up years in advance for the product, which with some creative extrapolation can turn magically into a sales forecast.” Publisher Starbreeze committed $8 million to distribute Psychonauts 2, while Shenmue earned additional funding from Sony and publisher Deep Silver. Even though Kickstarter support for video games has started to decline, it remains a viable path for gone-but-not-forgotten games to spawn sequels—or reboots or spiritual successors—years after the usual release window has closed. And more and more publishers—some standalone entities and some indie-oriented
divisions within larger companies—are eager to partner with smaller developers that might consider rehabilitating an inert IP.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 could be a bellwether of yet another new model of distant sequels. The successor to 2009’s Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 is being developed by Team Ninja and published by Nintendo, which will make it exclusive to Switch.“The console manufacturer digital marketplaces are now the leading retailers of content on consoles,” Piscatella explains. “Console makers also know exclusive content is one of the big draws and motivators for purchase.” That changes the risk/reward calculation for console makers: If they help fund or distribute a distant sequel in exchange for exclusivity, they can recoup their costs by providing another selling point for their system. As a result, Piscatella says, “I can definitely see a likely scenario where console manufacturers take a more active role in funding these kinds of games.”

In the short term, the spread of distant sequels will likely depend on how the wave that’s currently cresting fares financially. “If Kingdom Hearts III comes out [Tuesday] and sells well and takes the top spot on the January rankings and sets a sales record for the franchise, and if [[i]Devil May Cry] comes out and shows growth from previous release, we could see more of these types of games show up,” Piscatella says. “The games industry always wants historical benchmarks on which to base future expectations, [and] they’re shockingly happy to rely on outliers and exceptionally small sample sizes of successful titles to do it. On the other hand, if most/all these games fizzle, well … same goes the other way.”

In the long run, though, all indicators point toward a future that’s populated by progeny of the past. In the gaming industry, as in most entertainment arenas in the era of unceasing distraction, “ ” remains a sound strategy for convincing consumers not to press pause.

Noonan

Anyone put some time into this yet? I made sure it was downloaded on my console last night so I can dive in after work today.

Sonny Corinthos

I downloaded it this morning so it will be ready for me tonight!

mattysemo247

I picked up my XB1 Deluxe Edition from Best Buy at lunch (and already got my $10 reward zone certificate!). Glad I got it too since it's not available for shipping or pick up near me anymore.

mhg83

Starting tonight. No work tomorrow so I'll have all day to play

nickdawgy

It’s really an amazing game.

Noonan

I played through "KH2.9" last night. Visually, it's the best game i've ever seen. I'm a bit worried that it's going to be too easy though. Every 5-10 sec you get another one of those team attacks or the silly Disney ride special moves. I may up the difficulty and I may also have to turn off certain effects if we're getting those super moves so often.

One thing I already wish I could do is turn off the "tips" from Donald and Goofy. One party I blew past a tutorial screen and wasn't sure what to do for a few minutes. They kept repeating the same tip over and over. Doesn't seem to be a way to deactivate that.

mhg83

Just got finished with the first world.
If it wasn't for the stupid Organization 13 story i would easily say this is Game Of The Year.

Decker

nickdawgy

Yeah the story is pretty confusing. I don’t remember or know who half these guys are.

Noonan

Did you watch the recap videos built into the game? Those helped me a bunch. It's still confusing AF but I wasn't totally lost.

RichC2

The running plotlines for this franchise are a disaster, but the worlds themselves and characters you run into are delightful and make up for it.

Noonan

Agree. I'm far less interested in the overall story than I am the visually stunning journey; hopefully with some good rpg grinding/fights along the way.