KH13's Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory trailers breakdown

This breakdown was written by News Team member Delenn Deszcz, and co-written/edited by Orpheus Joshua. Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory is slated for release on November 11th, 2020 in Japan, and November 13th, 2020 globally. With these release dates came two new trailers; one being released by Nintendo during the Nintendo Direct Mini: Partner Showcase on August 26th, 2020, and the other being released by the Kingdom Hearts team themselves via YouTube on August 27th 2020. The trailer begins with a brief monologue of Kairi recounting the ending of Kingdom Hearts III, but ends off by stating that "...it was still far from over." These words can be alluding to the search for Sora, but it can also allude to a new threat on the horizon that Kairi and the others have learned about such as the Foretellers. The former is much more likely however as finding Sora is a dire mission for Kairi. The trailer during the Nintendo Direct Mini revealed a few key important details. There are multiple playable characters; Roxas is seen as playable for instance, along with Aqua and Riku. There will be musical boss battles, such as Maleficent who was used as an example during the trailer, in which you will have to hit certain notes (using the action buttons for PS4, the digital buttons for Xbox, and ABXY buttons for the Switch, and perhaps the analog) to attack the boss. Additionally, her battle quotes and arena are directly from Enchanted Dominion in Birth by Sleep! Every world has its own unique HUD which is a very neat touch reminiscent of the changing command menus in Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts III. Local cooperative play is confirmed! It is unknown if this can be performed during story or if it is an entirely separate mode altogether. Online multiplayer is available for all consoles in which players do their best to try and get high scores across the board and rise their way to the top! Chirithy seems to be the announcer for these versus battles where he announces harm coming to the player. These 'Tricks' as he calls them are akin to debuffs that can deter your consistency and upkeep with the track you are playing. 'Interference' and 'Harsh Judge' are shown off in this trailer as harmful tricks going towards the player, and 'Tiny Targets' and 'Vanishing Enemies' are shown off as tricks being sent to the opposing player. While the latter two tricks are self explanatory, the former two are not as transparent. There are HP gauges for both players which is also rather self explanatory. If you miss a note, your health will be decreased and there are likely some tricks that can cause that HP loss to worsen. There are Trick gauges as well which seem to build up as you increase your Chain (Combo) state. The Switch also gets an exclusive mode called the “Free-for-All mode”, in which you may battle with others locally with up to eight players. Not much word on how this mode will work was detailed in the trailer, but it sounds chaotic to say the least! In the trailer released by the Kingdom Hearts team on YouTube, more gameplay is revealed. There are Beginner, Standard and Proud difficulties for each song, and there are likely around three tasks to complete, called “Missions”, for each song. The level select for Twilight Town in the trailer implies that missions per world will be around that amount as well. Additionally, the track ‘Working Together’ is shown when selecting Twilight Town, which is the battle theme for when Sora is traversing the world in Kingdom Hearts II. It is safe to assume that ‘Sinister Sundown’, Roxas’ Twilight Town battle track from the same game will get its own stage too. This logic can apply to several worlds as there will most likely be several stages for each world. The level select looks incredibly familiar to the Kingdom Hearts II world selection map, which will spark nostalgia for many players! Multiple worlds that can be recognized from the Kingdom Hearts franchise were shown, including Pride Lands, Hollow Bastion, and Land of Dragons. The playable tracks shown where characters are running do show off bits of old maps that were not in the prior games, so it will be neat to at least see a bit more of these worlds! All of the worlds shown during this trailer on the world map are two Hollow Bastion stages, The End of the World, Destiny Islands in its endgame Kingdom Hearts state, Castle Oblivion, two stages of Twilight Town, the Station of Awakening, and Mysterious Tower. There are very brief, vague shots of what seem to be Castle of Dreams and Beasts' Castle but they are not fully shown. The confirmation screen for selecting a stage shows your rank, chain, and high score which is to be expected. There is also a number next to the difficulty with the number 9 being next to Standard while 'Working Together' was shown in the trailer. This number can represent difficulty level perhaps but it is too vague to speculate on. The party you are playing as is also shown which is Sora, Donald and Goofy in this case. There are at least three other trios confirmed with them being, Xion, Roxas and Axel; Aqua, Ventus and Terra and Dream Drop Distance Riku alongside the Meow Wow and Komory Bat Dream Eaters. Lastly there are selectable items on the bottom of the confirmation screen. There are a potion and hi-potion there which can be assumed to restore health, but the latter three items are a bit unfamiliar. There is a bell with the Kingdom Hearts themed crown etched onto it, some sort of yellow spiral with a blue sphere, and a star with a mickey head emblazoned on it. The star is somewhat reminiscent of the star shard Mickey had in Birth by Sleep, but the functions of these last three items are rather dubious to say the least. A section of the game, called the Museum, gives you access to the “Collection”, “Story Archive”, “Theater”, “Jukebox”, and “Records”. The “Story Archive” seems to let you look back on sections from the Kingdom Hearts franchise that hold significant importance, and the “Jukebox” is where you can listen to music from the game at your own leisure! "Theater" likely holds the story scenes of the game itself which has become a staple mode for the series. Lastly, "Records" is rather self explanatory and will possibly include in-game achievements separate from the Playstation trophies. That is purely speculation however. The Jukebox contains all the songs in the game, and the number of tracks per game included is even numbered which is nice to see just how much representation a respective title is receiving. "Collection" is a bit of an unknown point as of right now. You may obtain these Collector Cards as rewards from perfecting stages. The collectors' bonuses are even more of an unknown however. You have to fulfill missions to clear levels, and in doing so, you will obtain ingredients that you can use to synthesize new items, and get access to new songs by synthesizing them as well! You do get rewarded synthesis materials from clearing stages for the first time based off of the Twilight Town stage select screen earlier on in the trailer. There is an 'EXP bonus' labelled on the bottom. This more likely than not just gives extra experience to the Moogle. Higher leveled Moogles will seemingly be able to synthesize harder songs and more advanced items. Speaking of items, the bottom right of the synthesis screen while choosing 'Kairi I Memory Dive' says it is 'One of a kind'. That does confirm that there are consumables and such that you can synthesize such as the potions and hi-potions that were briefly shown earlier in the trailer. The story picks up after Kingdom Hearts III Re Mind, and will follow Kairi’s sleeping journey as she tries to figure out the mystery of Sora’s disappearance. We do hear a brief snippet of Kairi and Ansem the Wise’s conversation, but it is unable to be fully comprehended. We also catch a glimpse of Kairi at a young age (seeming to be of a similar age as she was in Birth by Sleep) in a familiar looking machine. This machine, known as the Ark, has been shown in Kingdom Hearts Union Cross, along with Kingdom Hearts. We’re still unsure as to what this machine exactly does aside from somehow transporting the individuals inside, and we’re unsure as to what Kairi is doing inside. (It was pointed out on Twitter, thanks to @princessxemnas, that the windows look like thalassa shells.) Ansem's Report 11 in Kingdom Hearts talks about apprentice Xehanort setting a girl who is likely a princess free in order to find the key bearer. This girl is most assuredly Kairi. That can be what apprentice Xehanort is doing right now but Kairi being in the pod raises a few other possibilities. He could be experimenting on her due to her being pure of heart but it is unknown as of right now. The 2020 trailer showed off a young Kairi trying to escape the heartless which could directly lead to her landing on Destiny Islands. In Kingdom Hearts, Kairi does state that her younger days are hazy, and as we are seeing in these trailers, that can certainly be due to the traumatic experiences she had as a child. Possibly being experimented on by apprentice Xehanort and being attacked by heartless are already grim enough to warrant a young child's mind to nullify those experiences. The phrase "Melodies and memories hold the secret of his final plan" is a rather vague and foreboding statement. The most likely candidate this would be referring to would be the Master of Masters since Xehanort is no longer a threat. The 2020 reveal trailer depicted a first person perspective shot of someone looking at Apprentice Xehanort in that same room. Thanks to this trailer, we can confirm that that is indeed Kairi due to not only the room, but also the angle at which she is laying. The final shot of the trailer shows Sora looking upwards, and then the release date. Something of peculiar note are the brief flashes of inverted color that cover the screen when Sora appears. This same general effect has been used in several Kingdom Hearts III and Re Mind trailers so this could just be for dramatic effect. It is worth keeping in mind however. Lastly, something of peculiar note are of the recently announced Melody of Memory acrylic stands releasing on the same day the game releases in Japan. One of the acrylic stands is blacked out which has caused some speculation. Personally, I believe the blacked out acrylic stand is of Kairi and is hiding a brand new Dream Realm design for her, in the same way that Riku and Sora had new outfits for Dream Drop Distance. This is pure speculation but, Kairi being absent from that merchandise raises some eyebrows to be sure. We can go into this game expecting addicting gameplay, more bits of story, and finding out more about Kairi’s journey when Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory releases westward on November 13th 2020!