Evolution of Magic in Kingdom Hearts 3

[Chaser]

It's been a wild few days, but you can't blame anyone for being excited! A new Kingdom Hearts 3 trailer came out, revealing the open worlds of Hercules and Tangled, as well as an English trailer for Unchained x! It's the stuff that many people day dream of and it actually came true!

Magic has been in Kingdom Hearts from the beginning. Taken from it's Final Fantasy roots, Sora has the ability to case a wild array of spells from fire, to cure, to gravity. While not every basic spell has been available to Sora (sorry water, watera, waterga), he's still had a lot of his sleeves to use.

In Kingdom Hearts 3, magic has been taken that one step further. There's lots to go over with just the three spells used in the game (if you spotted any more just let us know!) so lets just get straight to it! (And no, we're not taking the lightning from the Chariot into consideration here.)

Spell 1: Fire!

Fire has been mainly consistent throughout the games. It's only real change was in Kingdom Hearts II where it became a protection spell, however from then on it changed back to being a projectile attack. Kingdom Hearts 3 is no different, Fire launches from the Keyblade (which is glowing hot from the use of magic) and is shot towards one of the Heartless. From the gif below, Fire looks to be one of the most graphically upgraded advances of the spell, with the trail of flames it leaves behind. I can only imagine what the highest level of Fire will achiece.

Spell 1.5: Water!

While Water as a basic spell has not been used by Sora in the series thusfar, Water enemies have been added to the Hercules world. Here the Heartless are surrounded in an orb of Water but one of the most interesting things to note here, and why I'm including it, is because one of the Heartlesses sends the ENTIRE orb to attack poor old Goofy! (and it does a lot of damage, poor fella).

Another thing to note are the rainclouds. So far it doesn't look to be doing anything substancial to Sora other than to wet his socks. Hopefully later on it becomes a raincloud worthy of caution where it can inflict status ailments such as Poison.

Hopefully the addition of Water here isn't something that's only available to the enemies, much like Demyx's power. Demyx proved that Water can be dangerous, and with the Blizzard looking like something special, maybe Water finally can be used by Sora!

 

Spell 2: Aero!

Aero! I'm so excited for this one! Never using it before Kingdom Hearts 1.5, I never realised how amazing this spell is in it's protection and damage abilities. I was so excited when it was shown in the Kingdom Hearts 3 trailer.... and then I saw what it does and I questioned if it was Aero. It seemed more like a mini-tornado attack. So I guess...

The Real Spell 2 Guess: Tornado!

If it indeed even is Tornado! I mean, it certainly looks like it further on in the trailer. For what I believe is the first time, Tornado is available as a basic spell and not just a powerful attack used which you have to control yourself. The spinning above shows air travel around Sora, which ends in a lightning flourish. You can see the lightning in the gif below as well.

What I really like about this spell, and indeed every other spell now, is it's effect on the environment. The air makes the grass move, which is just a nice touch of realism that I never realised the games needed but I'm glad someone at Square Enix thought of!

 

Spell 3: Blizzard

The main reason why I made this topic is because of Blizzard. Thankfully it made me reflect on the spells above so I could extend this and note some things about the magic evolution. But while I love the grass movement and the Fire flying through the air, nothing impressed me more than how connected Blizzard has become to Flow Motion.

I'm sure that many of you noticed this, however there will be a few who are still overwhelmed by the sheer amount of things to look at in this trailer, that Sora casts a Blizzard spell, which is in itself just gorgeous, but then proceeds to slide along it like a grind rail in [Dream Drop Distance] and launch into the air. This type of Flow Motion has been seen in [Dream Drop Distance] where you slide down a rail, press B, and launch into the air, but it has not been useable with a magic spell before! 

And what about the left over Blizzard on the ground? Will it trip enemies over and cause damage? Will it expand like Elsa's power (now I'm actually excited for a potential Frozen world) and freeze enemies? The possibilties with magic are endless and I love it.

What do you love about the evolution of magic in Kingdom Hearts? Are there any spells you'd like to see or not see come back? And if so, what kind of advancements do you hope to see which would connect with gameplay or interact with the world?

 

[Launchpad]

I hope that there are fewer spells in KH3 than in BBS and DDD. I want each spell to feel unique, and to feel excited when one gets upgraded.

 

[BEASTENDER]

I do love how spells like Aero affect the environment now. I also love the connection between Blizzard and Flowmotion. It really "flows" and is how I pictured Flowmotion when it was first announced for DDD. I do still want big magic attacks like Mega Flare to return though.

 

[KH2Rulz]

What KH2 did really well was make each magic spell unique. For example, Fire was a short range AoE, Blizzard was a long range single target, and Thunder was a weaker, long range AoE.

This means each spell was very unique in its abilities and meant there were situations beyond just elemental weaknesses where you would use different spells. (Fire+Final Form has one of the highest DPS of the game if you get close to the enemy, Blizzard is great for stunning bosses and finishing them, Thunder is a great crowd controller, etc). This makes it very different from other RPGs where each spell is basically the recoloured version of each other.

Hopefully, KH3 will keep this trend. I see that Aero has already taken Fire's place as short range AoE. Blizzard appears to have a mobility element as well as a non-tracking missile.

Also, magic combo system is still in! You can see this when Sora's fighting the water creatures, where he finishes off on a powerful Fire spell. This is good!

 

[ShardofTruth]

The water element was utilized by DDD for the first time, there are no magic commands but some link attacks/style that use it. Of course there is also the Dumbo summon in KH and CoM but it dealt ice damage.

DDD was also the first game where light damage was dealt. I really hope we get a complex elemental system in KHIII and that all spells will be useful for a long time.

 

[alexis.anagram]

It'd be nice if each spell had a learning curve to it. Sora should really start off with all the basic spells, and accumulate more knowledge about how to use them through his adventures. Learning about how to hone blizzard/ice-based magic by adventuring through a "Frozen" world and encountering Elsa would help to tie that narrative into the overarching plot in a subtle but meaningful way. It would also negate the need to "reset" his magic abilities. With Attraction Flow, Keyblade transformations, Forms and whatever else they decide to throw in, there will be more than enough combat skills to accumulate and expand on throughout the game. Magic should be a primary game play function, along with X mashing for Keyblade strikes.

Magic was always something I thought KH did exceedingly well for a real time combat system. Its only real weakness, as with most KH game play mechanics, is that it's not strictly necessary in most titles; giving it an added tactical dimension, such as the Blizzard sliding for momentum or how Fire appears to be useful for rapidly casting and retreating at a tough moment, might encourage people to integrate it into their game play style. Regardless, I know I'll be happy with anything similar to magic in KH2. I love mixing some spells into my physical combos and feeling like a wizard.

 

[hemmoheikkinen]

Oh man. Now looking more closely to the trailer with these gifs, I realized how much detail I missed. The grass moves and all other things. The magic used here looks really cool. Can`t wait to see more!

 

[Axel92]

Imagine Haste applied to this acrobatic Sora *___*

 

[Sephiroth0812]

Imagine Haste applied to this acrobatic Sora *___*

I would imagine this results in a juggernaut similar to Terra using the Ventus-D-Link.

Sora would have Ventus' speed and agility combined with Terra's power blows.

 

[EternalDream]

Uh, Aero has been that small wind attack rather than a shield ever since Chain of Memories.
It looks exactly like it did in Birth By Sleep, no less.

 

[Zettaflare]

I hope that the balloon spell from DDD returns. That was one of my favorites in the series because of how original it was compared to the other spells.

 

[Lonbilly]

Still bitter that Command Deck is pretty much dead, but if we can get Balloon, Mega Flare, Zero Gravity, the Surges, Time Splicer, that cool command Sora and Riku had in DDD that I forget the name of that was light and dark, and Reflect, I'll be a slighty more happy camper.

On the plus side, the current magic looks very pretty. Nice to see some of the Heartless will still be a threat (probably only to Donald and Goofy but still).

 

[kuraudoVII]

Man, I still can't get over how awesome these spells look in the trailer. I wonder if some of the more advanced spells such as Glacier and Meteor will return.

 

[Hakan Xatos]

This is really awesome! I'm looking forward to seeing if Sora can utilize Water magic. I'd also like to see Reflect make a return. It's a fun spell to use. Also an upgradable Faith magic would be cool as well.

DDD was also the first game where light damage was dealt.

Actually wasn't CoM the first? You could do the Holy sleight.

 

[FudgemintGuardian]

Still bitter that Command Deck is pretty much dead, but if we can get Balloon, Mega Flare, Zero Gravity, the Surges, Time Splicer, that cool command Sora and Riku had in DDD that I forget the name of that was light and dark, and Reflect, I'll be a slighty more happy camper.

I want the Command Deck back. ;_;
With it being static the whole time during the trailer it's a little hard to determine how it'll work (and it may not be the finalized yet) so I'll keep holding on to a little hope.

Since this game seems to be all about making Sora as OP as possible, those moves making a return are pretty likely, lol

 

[LightUpTheSky452]

I'm so excited about the Blizzard spell! So excited about the Blizzard spell!

In fact, it reminds me of an idea I had some time ago, where if Flowmotion was to come back (which now it seems to be: eep!)--and you were Flowmotioning over a water area, for example--the Flowmotion attack should then change to something water related!

But, yeah: this Blizzard thing is even better, me thinks!

Never before have I been more excited for magic in this series! It all just looks SO glorious to behold.

And amazing job analyzing all of this in the midst of everything else going on, Chaser. It's given me a lot to think about/hope for, and just including the gifs here makes it even easier to understand Brava, brava, bravissima.

 

[Guard the Light]

I hope that you can carry your blizzard spells along walls to increase your flow motion abilities. Flow motion was too static in ddd. Plus, how cool would it be to be like Frozone.....but with a keyblade

 

[Chaser]

Uh, Aero has been that small wind attack rather than a shield ever since Chain of Memories.
It looks exactly like it did in Birth By Sleep, no less.

I'm holding out on a dead dream that KH1 aero comes back </3

 

[Guard the Light]

I'm holding out on a dead dream that KH1 aero comes back </3

Agreed. Or some defensive spell of the sort. Make magnet a permanent thing. Perhaps that rain spell we saw does buffs? Can we see spells related to saboteur and synergistic finally please.

 

[Ven Ventus]

I personally would like to see it to where you upgrade Areo to where it not only does damage to the enemies but at the same time casting a circular wind shield that not only hurts the enemies if they touch you but when you touch them as well (kinda like in KH1).