Confirmation that Back Cover will be done in the KH3 engine as we suspected (yay), and that BBS0.2 will be short af. Also seems to confirm the Castle of Dreams thing, if we take "immediately" at face value, which I know will excite soooome people :p

(they better be knocking down the price of 2.8 from the preorder price because lord not so much value)

Yep, I was expecting 0.2 to be about that long. So it will more or less be Kingdom Hearts III: Ground Zeroes. One hour of gameplay and probably more cutscenes than that. I'm down with that

The volume is a short episode that is about as worth as one world from the KH series.

A KH3 demo is still a KH3 demo, and I'm completely ok with that.



That's a good comparison.

Exciting, it really does sound like KH3 is further in development than they put out, seeing as he needs to hide things :D

That's one way to look at it....

The other is that they consider KH3 still so long away from now that they created a game just to fill in the gap.

I like being optimistic :D

It's sort of weird imagining the artwork of Unchained being put into the KH3 technology. Such as what Chirithy and the Foretellers. Then again, there's a lot of things I can't wait to see what will look like in KH3. Still something to look forward to.

I look forward to seeing that Ephemera's curly locks in KH3 graphics~

Cant wait to see how the heartless and special effects in 0.2 will look because it will be the first playable title in the series with PS4 graphics since it releases before KH3.
Also i hope that they wont make use of the command deck system and go back to the traditional KH battlesystem instead.

i wonder what the fortellers loo withouth there masks on espcially ava

Tell me about it, I want to see what Old Master Xehanort looks like in KH3 graphics.

Honestly i'm a little disappointed it's only going to be an hour long, and I wonder if that is an hour with cutscenes and everything included or if that's just 1 hour worth of gameplay. I was hoping it would at least be as long as the Roxas tutorial at the beginning of KH2, so about 3 hours long with at least 3 bosses or something. I hope we get to see some worlds in the dark realm like Castle of Dreams and maybe finally the Dumbo and Bambi worlds will make an appearance. Also imagine Pride Lands & The Land of Dragons consumed in darkness.

The playtime for 0.2 is rather disappointing but I think I'm okay with it. I think as long as it has enough content to keep playing past the main story's timeframe, I'm fine.

0.2's playtime is really kind of subjective though; if you make an effort to slow down exploration (as long as they give us that option instead of blocking the way back to other areas or something) you can make it longer than just rushing through. Plus, it's still longer than the last time you played Aqua in the RoD, right? I haven't played it, but judging from youtube videos, wasn't it about half an hour long? A world takes longer than that, surely.

I'm honestly not expecting it to be quite that long. Hopefully it's just so fun to play that, like the FF XV demo, you keep playing it even though you're basically doing the same thing over and over again. We can't really know for sure, though, since I think the length of world stories has flactuated throughout the years (console vs. handheld entries), so yeah. We'll see.

I also hope the Chi Back Cover stuff is an actual properly edited movie, instead of a compilation of disconnected cutscenes. I don't care how long it is, just make it look like a proper movie.

Depends on the game we're talking about. In BBS a world took about 20-25 minutes (for Disney worlds) to complete per story. In KH2 the first trip to a Disney World usually took about an hour to complete. (BBS seemed to be going for that per world, but just spread the time across each story). With 358/2 Days it's hard to judge since the story for each world is spread out across the game in different missions. If it's a KH original world the stories can go beyond an hour, just look at Hollow Bastion in KH1 for example. Now of course i'm stating all these times included gameplay, cutscenes, the whole nine yards.

Some nice info here. It seems 0.2 won't be that long and that's fine as it's a demo of sorts. I'm more interested in DDD anyway as I've never played it.

Well this is a perfect collection for you my friend since KH3D and BBS are the two most important games to play before playing KH3.

I'd prefer it to be that way. Really want to take my time just with Dream Drop Distance and finally just get ready for the Big Kahuna.

Well, looks like we might very well get to explore Castle of Dreams then if 0.2 is set immediately after BBSFM's secret movie. (And if that's the case, there's also the chance we'll get that world in KHIII too.)

Around an hour sounds about right for the demo-ish 0.2 but I do hope he's talking more gameplay wise when talking length. I want lots of cutscene after all.

Yeah, but think of all the worlds that we know were in the Realm of Darkness at the time.

1. Castle of Dreams
2. Enchanted Dominion
3. Dwarf Woodlands
4. The Great Forest (Bambi)
5. Spectacular Circus (Dumbo)
6. The Land of Dragons
7. Pride Lands
8. Beast's Castle
9. Pranksters Paradise
10. La Cite Des Cloches
11. Symphony of Sorcery
12. Country of the Musketeers
13. Spotty London (101 Dalmatians

Now i'm not saying Aqua has to visit all of those worlds, but at least Dumbo, Bambi, & 101 Dalmatians which we've never seen in the series before and a couple of the worlds we've been to before in the realm of light that were in the realm of darkness at this point would be nice. Again there doesn't have to be a story in each world since I imagine traversing these dark realm worlds will be similar to traversing memories worlds in Reverse/Rebirth due to the likely lack of Disney Characters in the Dark Realm worlds, but I want at least a few worlds just for exploration sake.

Perhaps, but it can be averaged out, and on average a world in BBS with one character was about 30-45 minutes of play + cutscenes. You could run through a world in most other KH games in an hour. Maybe close to 2 hours if you're not rushing and are leveling up.

But regardless, one world worth of a story isn't that much time or much of a story.



Well, FFXV's demo kept people entertained by having a various amount of side quests to be completed while playing, and every other day cycle you could go do a tour with a party member in 2.0. Honestly after I defeated Behemoth, I didn't want to play anymore. There was no more purpose when nothing in it amount to anything in the full game. Even with all of the post-demo content (and there was plenty of fetch quests, enemies to discover and battle, weird NPC moments to watch)

This is why I want 0.2 to have more content than just the story it is presenting. Episode Duscae had tons to do and its story was made for demo uses only.

0.2 is actually a piece of the KH puzzle, so it should also have plenty of content to hold us over and not just playability because it has fun gameplay.



Same. If we can get a ton of cutscenes, I'll also be very happy.



What story relevance they would have to the overall plot of KH3, though?

As movies in general, Dumbo and Bambi don't have much to offer to the scope and scale of story KH3 seems to be striving towards, and all three of the those film's stories still wouldn't be explored in 0.2 since the worlds would be empty being in the RoD and all, and their worlds wouldn't offer much to the grand scheme of things.

Seems like a waste of asset creation for those three specific worlds. At the very least the PoH worlds would be a bit better to cover because of their plot relevance.

Again there doesn't have to be a story in each world since I imagine traversing these dark realm worlds will be similar to traversing memories worlds in Reverse/Rebirth due to the likely lack of Disney Characters in the Dark Realm worlds, but I want at least a few worlds just for exploration sake.

Yes, there doesn't need to be story but like I said above, that is a waste of asset creation if none of those worlds are going to lead anywhere plotwise.

If the Prologue was meant to be originally in KH3 and has been moved up... I could see it lasting about 4 hours of gameplay - the same amount of time KH2 was with Roxas. Well, its always taken me that long when I've played KH2 and that is trying to do everything I can there...

A shame the only game worth getting in 2.8 is gonna be so brief. Oh well.

Even though 0.2 will be one world's length of content, I'll definitely drag it over an hour since I'll explore every nook and cranny. I'll just have fun fooling around and taking in the new engine, visuals and gameplay.

Well, if they make the world open and big as KHIII, then i think there will be alot to do. Also even its only one world, they they can fill it with lots of things to do, like special bosses, rare drops like new keyblades and so on and since they want to include mechanics from KHIII, i think there will be keyblade transformations, flowmotion and attractionflows to mess around with. Maybe even giving a way to reach max level and since KHIII will feature keyblade leveling like KHX did, that could make it into this game aswell and so there would be even more to do.

Oh they wouldn't have any real relevance. I just want them to show up in the series already. Bambi and Dumbo are the only 2 summons from KH1 who haven't gotten their worlds featured and it feels like they've gotten shafted. 101 Dalmatians is a Disney classic and i'm stunned it hasn't made an appearance yet. I would have honestly preferred Dumbo to have been the mini-game world for BBS instead of Disney Town (Which should have been a normal battle world), perhaps as a Circus owned by Scrooge or something. Bambi should have like wise been the mini-game world for KH3D IMO. 101 Dalmatians would have been perfect for KH3D since it could have easily been a sleeping world, and could have replaced La Cite Des Cloches because honestly La Cite Des Cloches was a world that I feel would have been better in KH3.

It's not really anything to do with relevance, it's just I feel these worlds have been shafted and 0.2 may be the last chance for us to get them in some form even if they don't have a story.

Be careful what you wish for. More content in 0.2 means development time away from KH3. If it was going to be multiple hours long with multiple areas it would require significant work. Short 30min-1h taste in one area is more than enough for me.

The downside is that SE uses this to justify the 60€ pricepoint but what can you do. This Ground Zeroes type of slice product will only become more popular as games become more expensive and development times become longer. I'm also not at all convinced that it's a good business decision to ask for this much. I think Type-0 could have done better numbers if it launched at 40€/$ to justify lower pricepoint. Considering DDD is hardly a fan favourite this collection will be a hard sell outside of the very hardcore fanbase compared to 1.5 and 2.5.

How is 0.2 taking away time from kh3 there both being developed at the same time?

Because the same people are working on both. If you are working on something for 0.2 it means you aren't working on KH3. That is the precise reason why it will be so short.

Also even demos that contain the same content as the main game take surprising amount of work to get out.

really hope the KH1-KH2 battle system isnt coming back. it would be a huge step in the wrong direction, especially seeing as Aqua is magic-focused, and that system is very much not conducive for overly magic-using playstyles

Nomura on 3DHD becoming playable, 0.2's story and gameplay - News - Kingdom Hearts Insider

They are going with a hybrid style.

KH1/KH2's system is in KH3, though completely revamped.

thats... a bit of a shame. i at least hope the magic system gets looked at, MP is super archaic as a system. there's no reason that your healing spells should use the same resource as any offensive magic you have, from a gameplay standpoint

While I prefer the command deck system gameplay-wise, I have to disagree with this to a certain degree. The MP system is the more logical system. Think about it, you're using spells that supposedly ask some energy from you, the caster. Both defensive spells and offensive spells would have a toll on you and wouldn't tap into anything else but your energy. I think it's important for gameplay to also make sense so I wouldn't necessarily call it illogical, even from a gameplay standpoint. There are just more fun ways to go about it, I guess, which is probably what you're getting at anyways.

Curious how they'll go about mixing the BBS gameplay with the new KH 3 gameplay. I'm also wondering whether or not we'll only play as Aqua in 0.2 BBS.