May 10, 2004—Shinji Hashimoto, Kingdom Hearts producer extraordinaire, walked casually onto the stage of the Disney Concert Hall to much applause. Square Enix invited him and a bunch of other notable developers and production types to come and present their many Square Enix titles, but his was most anticipated. Hashimoto-san boasted a polished suit, a clean cut, a pronounced but polite voice, and a killer game. After a brief statement touting the success of Kingdom Hearts, a game that has sold over four million copies worldwide, he quickly segued into gameplay, and thus introducing Tetsuya Nomura, Kingdom Hearts director. Nomura-san is Mr. Hashimoto's exact opposite.
After adjusting his rolled up punk-cargo pants and shuffling his rolled down converse laden feet over to the podium, the shaggy, artsy Nomura-san began to speak about his game. When prompted to describe Kingdom Hearts II and explain the game, Mr. Nomura stated things to the effect of "dynamic" and "improved system." He then turned and pointed at the video screen.
In comes the trailer. We see improved graphics, new environments, and plenty of familiar characters. This sequel starts nearly a year after the original game left off. No new details on the storyline were presented, but it was said that we will meet old characters, meet new characters, and see everyone meeting everyone else. The quick flashes of successive scenes faded in and out of conversational moments, typically diverse and colorful landscape shots, and non-interactive character animation sequences. We see Ninja Mickey chopping down an army of hooded goons of unknown deviousness. We see Donald, Sora, and Goofy standing next to one another as an army of evil approaches. Then it would again fade in and out, blasting more imagery and quick portraits onto the screen... Disney characters such as Hercules, Aladdin, that evil sea biscuit from The Little Mermaid, Ariel herself, Peter Pan, Belle and the very angry Beast, and more Final Fantasy characters, even. It was quite impressive.
A few spell effects and quick action sequences were also shown. In all, the demonstration was extremely short, and rather uninformative, but looked awesome and certainly rekindled our already rabid interest in the game. We'll be procuring hands-on time and direct feed videos as the show drags on.
Here are a few pictures I found...
...Belle and Donald
...Hercules and Megara
...Dark Mickey
...Mulan, Shang, and Sora
...Mulan and Mushu***Pictures from IGN
I cannot wait until this release!!
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