Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

Very nice. I'm not as much of a fan of this single than the other two games, but I'm sure it grows on you as you play the game, and of course there are going to be full orchestral renditions/performances of it.

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

I wonder why "Chikai" is going to be made available this early and yet "Don't Think Twice" won't be released until whenever KH3 comes out (6 months or more later)? So bizarre. Good luck to her though.

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

It's a Epic Records Japan decision and not a Disney / Square Enix decision to release the album, which is why it's getting launched next month but the English song is later (I'm not sure if the English version is strictly Epic Records Japan?).

Would be nice to get Don't Think Twice but that's okay, we'll hear more from it soon enough :)

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

It wouldn't be unheard of for them to release a Chikai/Don't Think Twice EP with all the versions of the songs and remixes in it closer to the game's release.

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

Y’all I’ve been listening to “Hatsukoi” almost nonstop and I’m just too emotional. It’s not a song just about “first love” but about finding true love for the first time and how you can experience so much in life but come to realize that the love you feel in that moment is real, heart-stopping love.

This album is so bittersweet and romantic and I hate it

cryingonfloor.gif

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

as as oath comes out i getting that song and listenring to it nonstop then i get the remixes and doth think twice singles

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

I love how she expresses this through lyrics which reference her physical state, it gives you that sense of being overwhelmed and incapacitated by such intense emotion and that jives with all of the musical groundwork so perfectly. The composition is breathtaking and almost exasperating; it does me in every time.

It's also going to sound so, darn, good dropping from this into "Chikai" on the full album. The abrupt break of the strings on "Hatsukoi" followed by the tilt of the piano on "Chikai" and then the resumption of the strings is going to make it feel almost like one long track that just shifted meter and mood to tell a complete story. The album is definitely going to have some heavy-lifting to do after stacking "Anata" and then these two tracks one after the other, like I'm excited for "Too Proud" but it has some solid shoes to fill here.

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

Utada sounds better in the present day than ever in the past. I'd kill for her to rerecord the JAP and ENG themes to KH1 and KH2 to go along with the eventual who-knows-when release of Don't Think Twice.

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

I would be so here for it...

I think we will only See DTT when KHIII is about to be released, let's hope i'm wrong

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

Apparently, there are ads popping up on YouTube for Oath and Hatsukoi! They use KH footage! https://twitter.com/amaziahyt/status/1005224293846970368?s=21

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

I got an ad on YouTube for Chikai with KH footage.

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

Sweet! I’m hoping I get lucky and see it myself.

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

What for real!?

*keeps opening a monetized video on YouTube trying to get the ad*


EDIT: I can officially say that I got the ad. ^w^

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

*starts clicking random videos*

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

Ugh why cant i get ads when I want them when they show up all the time when I don't?

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

I just got one on a random video while walking home and I had to snatch my phone out of my pocket and check to see what was happening haha. I love that they're cross-promoting KH3 and "Hatsukoi," with all the trailer footage and then the ad ends on that gorgeous album cover. This is what I came for.

Edit: I did manage to get a screenshot of it at the time (very hastily), figured I'd post it here for the curious and/or extra thirsty.
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

It might depend on your search and watch history. Especially on google.

I was at first unsuccessful so I cleared my watch history and search history and then started clicking on nothing but KH and Utada videos and whala on a music video for Utadas last album, the ad happened. I haven't gotten it again tho.

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

Thanks for sharing! It’s good to know multiple people are seeing it. Since we’ve never gotten a new theme song this far ahead of release, I’m excited to see all the marketing tie ins they use it for.

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

They're using "Chikai" now, which makes me hopeful we'll got some "Don't Think Twice" spots closer to the game's release. Hopefully the magic internet algorithms are kind to this game, I'll take every chance to hear that track I can.

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

I'm having a very very bad day but these new pieces of info are helping me through.

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

https://youtu.be/eDRasnit2WU


Somebody got a video and uploaded it to YouTube. You can't hear the song but you can see some of the actual ad.

For those wondering, the clip from the song that playes is the chorus

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

Us, any other day: "Ugh, stupid ad. Just let me skip alreadyyyy..."
Us, now: "Where's the ad? Where's the ad?! I gotta watch that ad!"

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

I swear, only the KH fandom can get so hyped over an ad

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

When KH2 got a 60 second ad they were showing in GameStops back in the day, I went over there and just waited patiently until it played. Thing is I saw it hundreds of times online. I just needed to see it being advertised in person.

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

Honestly it gives me KH1/2 era memories with the 30 sec Disney Channel advertisements, even CoM got some of those. I don't watch TV anymore so I have no clue if anything has shown up there the past few game cycles but this ad is just like that, short and sweet with that sexy theme music. Just needs a catchy tag line and some cheesy trailer voice at the end.

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

Too Proud is a banger.

Good Night is my bias though

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

The album is amazing. I love all the new songs, and "Chikai" is too beautiful for words.

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

Oh snap. Thought this wouldn't be out till tomorrow. How y'all listening to it?

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

It is available in stores in Japan and it's playing on the radio today instead of tomorrow.

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

So good! It's can also be found from various users uploading to YouTube in the past few hours, although I'm not sure what would be permissible to attach here on KHInsider, so 'll leave it at that.

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

I also listened to it on YouTube. It's pretty and sounds appropriate for the conclusion of the Xehanort saga, though I'm having a hard time thinking of it as the intro so I wonder if there's gonna be an upbeat version of it at the beginning. I like it overall, it has a nice beat and of course Utada's voice is always great.

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

how do you remix this song though that why i wonder

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

Tim...she fucking raps.

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

true but wouldn't mess up the speed section as well though?

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

Ahhhhh gotcha! Thanks for the rundown, sir!

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

I'm actually picturing something of a slower more somber opening, something very FF10 like another one of Nomura's games. People just sitting somberly on the beach, their weapons in the sand, etc... But for me I'm picturing something potentially darker or happier...maybe uncertain is a better word.

Just an example idea:

A slow pan across the sight of the keyblade graveyard looking dark as night, starting first with the decrepit keyblades of the first keyblade war scattered about. But then it switches and suddenly we start to see close up pans over weapons from characters we actually know scattered about looking worn down as if they went through an intense battle. Xigbar's guns, Saix's claymore, Lea's flame keyblade, Ven's wayward wind, Goofy's shield, Marluxia's scythe, etc... Then it pans over to something else more ominous, three keyblades (Destiny's Embrace, Braveheart, Kingdom Key) stabbed into the ground together, going over each one super slowly until it pulls back and shows the full image of them arranged as if they are holding one up together.

Then it gradually zooms out, the image becomes more fish eye lens, and a blue filter starts to fade in as it becomes clear we are seeing an image reflected in the eye of Master Xehanort's keyblade. Suddenly the eye shatters and we do a rapid zoom into each individual shard, darting from one shard to another, seeing little glimpses of characters and scenes from across the timeline in them. One shard has Roxas starring at Sora in the pod, another Kairi staring at the ocean, one contains Master Xehanort sitting on a throne, etc.... stuff like this we essentially see all the major players. After we see a memory bit play out in a shard it twinkles and fades into the darkness with the final shard showing Sora. When the last shard twinkles out of existence there is a flash of light and the KH3 Logo appears on screen.

The idea of this kind of opening is showing us a small glimpse of the future the blade has already seen. The first war that started it and all the second one in KH3 where the heroes fail to stop light from perishing and the world's destruction. Everyone is gone having become part of the X-blade or swallowed by the darkness brought by the end of the world, but even in gone SRK's friendship endured to the bitter end they went out together. The fracturing of the eye is a three fold metaphor, it represents Xehanort splitting himself, the end of his saga, and the end of the sight the blade granted to the future because there is no future. Sora being the last light to fade is extra ominous and make it seem like things are at their darkest but that's why KH3 suddenly flashed on screen. "Even in the deepest darkness there will be a light shinning" even when everything is swallowed by the dark light survives, in this case the light of kingdom hearts that has been lost in the darkness waiting for its true return. With it a tinge of hope that this future can be prevented, that this is the thing we'll be fighting to stop.

Now I don't expect anything remotely like this opening to happen but this was just sort of an example of what I mean by a slower more somber opening that could fit the song.

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

Kinda boring for opening tbh, i hope it's for the ending and the opening will be more hyped remix

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

I hope we don’t have to wait till the game releases to hear the English version

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

I am blown away by this album... I never thought she could top Fantome but miss Hikaru did it one more time... It is her best album to date... Even Paukuchi is a damn bop.

KISS ME ONCEKISS ME TWICEKISS ME THREE TIMESONEGAI

Yuugani is better than all of fantome alone. it talks about her mother. I LOVE THIS WOMAN

Re: Utada Hikaru's album featuring "Chikai" from KH3 available for pre-order

Is it evil of me to declare this to be the best KINGDOM HEARTS theme song of all time?

Seriously... dat ending vamp, doe...