Hero of Light XIV

Doesn't look horrible to me, it's literally just the meteors moving faster, I don't see the problem as long as you're avoiding them. Really I thought the slow speeds kind of made it a bit underwhelming. And just saying "worse" doesn't tell me a whole lot about those other bosses, what exactly is "worse"? Did they get faster, more difficult, more cheap? And I never had any problems with that Xemnas command on the PS3, what exactly are you talking about?

As always, likely story-related. Now that things will be focusing on a new Union dynamic (parties with other Union members possibly?), it makes sense to gear the title towards the interactive experience. We're literally crossing union boundaries to team up and fight Heartless like we probably should have been doing since the very beginning. It's still going to be Unchained X to me, and yeah they probably could have just made it a sub-subtitle like Reverse/Rebirth, but it's still KHUX no matter what. I'm just going to always read it as "Kingdom Hearts Unchained X -Union Cross-".

I really hope I'll get to see him during the second LA concert, since that's the one I'm attending. He's just being cheeky, that's all.

Holy expletive guys! You all better Pre-Reg, I did that before I even saw this news! XD"

Well at least they made it available in English. I wonder if that means they'll feature it at the other concerts. Probably not, cause Japan is "special" and all that. Still, it would be nice to have Jason Dohring and Britney Snow/Allison Stoner read this for us. Also, I really hope we get some neat KH3 news at the other concerts. I mean, I understand they couldn't do that for all of them, unless they only revealed one tiny little thing at each one, but I'm still hoping for something special for the concert I'm going to in LA on the 11th.

Square Enix has announced that Kingdom Hearts Unchained χ[chi] has been renamed to Kingdom Hearts Union χ[cross] for its second season. You can view the official logo and new artwork, as well as the new trailer, below: The trailer focuses on the all-new Multiplayer Mode and shows Ventus for the first time in the game. We'll bring an update with the translated trailer as soon as we get it. You can visit the Japanese pre-registration page for the game here. UPDATE 1: A teaser trailer is now available for the English version of Kingdom Hearts Union χ. View the trailer from the official Kingdom Hearts YouTube channel below: UPDATE 2: We now have the English release date for Kingdom Hearts Union χ. According to Gematsu, the free update will be released in April with a new "Union Cross" multiplayer mode and more ways you can customize your player avatar. Here's an overview from Square Enix: UPDATE 3: We have also added translations for the trailer dialogues. Check the translations below. Click here to view the article

Are you kidding!? BRING ON THE CHALLENGE! AHAHAHAHA! >

Xion's end. Not saying that I like seeing Xion die, just that it was probably the most powerful scene in the entire series so far.

I wonder if this will in any way be related to that "movie" that's supposed to play at the concerts. I mean it sounds music related by the title alone, wouldn't be too surprised if it were the case.

Yes yes, BUT DID THEY FIX THE VEN STATION OF AWAKENING IN THE PROLOGUE YET? That's honestly the only thing that's still bugging me right now, lol. I could always tolerate those load times. But it's still nice to see the games running the most smooth and efficient they've ever been.

I mean, it's more intense than a Nerf gun fight, that's for sure. X)"

Did you miss the part in previous tweets where he said his plan would be to have a Japanese studio animate the human characters while a separate studio would animate the Disney ones? Because that's more or less what you're asking for. Also, you're making a false equivalency yourself, just because something is made in Japan or America doesn't necessarily determine it's quality, not even if it's an adaptation from one or the other. If a Japanese studio was put in charge of making an anime adaptation of Legend of Korra, it would have the same chance of being worse than the original as it would being better, it just depends on who you get to do it. Need I remind you that Japan is just as bad at adapting their animes into live action movies as we are with adapting our cartoons into live action movies? Quality and lack-thereof is not something you can put on a map, there's a lot more complex circumstances involved than "Japan can just adapt things better than we can". And as I said before, how you approach this really depends on who you are, since we don't know enough to really objectively say he's genuine or not from either angle. For one thing, I can totally follow that heartbreak analogy, and it's funny how no one is going after other creators Tartakovsky for taking a similar length of time to fight for Samurai Jack being completed on Toonami, when theoretically he also could have fought for that action a lot sooner (you think he may have had similar feelings? You know, considering he had to stop before it was even finished? I think so.) But perhaps that's just me, maybe I'm the only guy who would relate to that. Maybe I was being a bit over-optimistic in coating my words how we should trust him, but do you even know the guy well enough yourself to rationalize such a pessimistic view of what his motives and future actions are? The fact is we don't know enough to definitively say that he's either going to make or break this, not in an objective manner anyway. From where I'm standing, there's just as equal a chance that he means what he says as there is that he's just feeding us pretty words to artificially build up more support for it. But at this point, does that even matter? The fact is someone is trying to get a KH show greenlit from Disney, which would result in Disney putting much more effort into promoting Kingdom Hearts than it ever has in it's 15 years of existence. Nothing has been confirmed yet, no solid plans have been put into action beyond negotiations and industry connections, nothing but nice what-ifs if the project does get to go through (I'm personally thankful he's saying this much now since he'd have to be mostly silent if it where greenlit later). So until the show is greenlit, I don't see much point in being cynical towards a guy we barely know anything about (I mean it sounds to me like you've already decided you hate the guy, but maybe I'm misreading your words). It's only when it becomes a thing that I feel any concerns we have are more relevant and worth reflecting on. On a personal note though, I will say this, I really want this to happen. Disney barely acknowledges KH as much as it's other products and a TV show would be the best excuse to change all that. I've seen so many other promising and deserving show pitches get the shaft just because the networks foolishly think that not enough people would want to see them become a thing (Still praying for G:KND someday being a thing). This guy shows up with a pretty decent idea from the past, takes action to try and revive that idea when it is most needed, and gives me plenty of reasons to feel excited and secure about what he would do with it. I'm pretty much going to have a positive bias, no matter what you tell me. But I still understand if you feel you've been burned too many times before by similar words from other producers and creators and what not, and I get it, there's a lot of disappointing stuff out there that had similar promising starts. But I really can't shake the good feeling I'm getting from this, so until I feel I have a real reason to be worried...yeah I'm not going to be worried. Well although you're skeptical, you're at least being sensible about it. I feel it's easier to understand your concerns and reflect on them myself when you put it in a neutral passive way that makes sense. I mean, yeah I hope the guy is on the up and up, but I guess I'm too excited about the idea of this show being real to really be skeptical right now. I just want to know Disney's answer first, then I can start speculating and stuff.

I was making a longer response to this, but my computer did a thing and I lost all that, so I'll just keep it short. Essentially I feel we don't know enough about the guy to really doubt him that much. Likewise, you could also argue we don't know enough about him to really take his words to heart either. We're coming from pretty level ground, so at this point how you look at it really depends on who you are as a person. So while some who are more sensible like you are are probably going to be looking at this with skepticism, those who are cautiously optimistic like me are going to be looking at this with consistently renewed hope. Maybe it just says something about who I am as a person, but everything he's had to say about this so far has been consistently making me more excited and hopeful that this get's greenlit. I mean it, I don't object with anything he's said, and that's pretty rare for me, even if I don't feel one way or the other on something I'll still have some thoughts about it beyond "Yeah, I could work with that". I personally don't feel any reason to doubt, let alone distrust the guy. Maybe I'm being a touch over-optimistic, but I'm not really getting any bad vibes off of this, I honestly feel really good about what he might do for the show. Of course, none of this will mean a damn thing if Disney says no, so I guess we'll have to wait for those results before we learn anything for sure. But I think Kingdom Hearts needs this, so I hope this does come to happen after all.

OR, he might be doing it now because there's enough traction and interest that Disney would actually listen to the idea of a KH animated series. Can you just think about this for a second? Yes, theoretically he could have attempted this again in any of the 10+ years that followed the initial attempt at making the show, but it was Disney that shut it down later. He hasn't worked on it since because he's been busy working on other projects, making money off that (GASP, making money doing your job!? SO EVIL!!!!). Now he is clearly aware of how much stronger of a presence KH is having due to KH3's presence, so he is to some extent relying on the regenerated mega-hype of the series and the fanbase to give this project another shot. But that doesn't mean he's some kind of money-grubbing Hollywood producer who only cares about making the final profit in the end. Have you even taken a look at his twitter? The guy clearly cares about the craft he's in, he takes animation seriously. And literally every word he is saying in this interview or any other random tweet with KH as the subject expresses his genuine interest in the series, the interest to learn more. He has stated multiple times that he does not, DOES NOT want to disappoint or upset the fans of the franchise. He went out of his way to play the first game, arguably the most important game in the entire franchise, just so he could do the show justice because he cared that much. He even risked getting kicked off the project altogether by just suggesting that they change the pilot to fit with KH's story a little better. What part of that screams "I'm only in this for the money, I'm only pretending to be a fan. GIVE ME MUNNY KH FANS!!"? If that was really what he was, he would have left the pilot as it was originally written, in his own words, "An episode of Aladdin, with Sora, Donald, and Goofy in it." It'd be great if he was going to play all the games, but the fact is that he's a working adult, and there realistically isn't enough time for him to play even just CoM/Re:CoM and KH2 in a fast enough time period to fully get the gist and spirit of the story and then be able to write for it with whatever development time Disney would give them. It's not easy committing to a video game when you have a lot of work you have to do on a consistent basis, and if he does get this show greenlit, he's going to be even more busy. Even if they don't start writing, they'll still try to get started on other areas of production, they aren't going to want to pause the whole project just so he can study the series in the way you want him to. It makes much more practical sense for him to experience everything through Let's Plays and Walkthroughs, that way he gets the experience of the story without having to be slowed down by however he figures out controls, navigation, and what to do next. There's plenty of competent players out there, he's in good hands. And just cause he wants to immerse himself in everything doesn't mean that he's not going to go to CoM and KH2 directly after KH1. Really, I'd be more concerned if he only deemed those two titles as anything worth looking at while ignoring everything else like some "fans" do. Yeah it's important for him to see how the next direct chapters go, but I think as a writer it's also important to him to see just where the whole story is going. Don't you get it? He's genuinely curious. He wants to throw himself in, understand the series (as best as we can anyway), and appreciate it even more than he originally did. He had great respect for the first one after he played it and wanted to do it right when it came to the show. He's only avoided the rest of the series for this long because he had mixed feelings about looking back after Disney scrapped the show. He literally described it as recovering from a breakup. Have you ever even been through a breakup before? I have. It's hard. Like, really hard. You want to keep seeing how the other person (KH in this case) is doing so badly, but there's all this baggage and heavy memories attached. He'd just be forcing himself to go "AUUUGH, why didn't Disney let me make this? It's so good!" Granted, maybe he would have felt motivated to try again sooner, but don't forget, he's dealing with a company here, they aren't exactly quick to change their minds, and certainly not that easily. So that's why his approach in reattempting it now is smart. He knows that this is probably going to be KH's biggest release yet, and he's aware of all the hype and attention Square is bringing around it. If there was ever an environment to get Disney to open it's eyes and realize "Oh hey, we could actually make a lot more money off of this franchise if we gave it more outlets", this would be it, and Kearsley realizes that. This might not have gotten as much traction as it is now if this was going on in the middle of the Days, BBS, Coded era, or even the 10th anniversary. This is the best time you could ever try this again. So yes, maybe if you were still stubbornly unconvinced by what I say, you could still argue that he is still doing this at this time in this current environment to "take advantage of a the resurgence of a numbered KH title to boost his own work". But really, is that such a bad thing? In the end, it still benefits all of us. By doing so, he's going to make Disney realize what they really should have realized since as late as 2005, that they should seriously invest in further promoting Kingdom Hearts in more ways than just its video game series. He knows that if he does a piss-poor job at it, there will be little reason for Disney to stay interested in giving it additional seasons, that's why he's going out of his way now to make it clear to fans that he does care about the series and does want to understand more of it before he puts any pen to paper to make sure he does the series justice. This guy has given us very little reason to be suspicious of him, and I'm honestly quite surprised that someone could look at "I want to immerse myself in the rest of the series before writing the show so I actually know what I'm doing, unlike the current Sonic game writers" (okay, I may have paraphrased that part) and interpret it as "Heheh, well I never really cared about this series that much since the show got scrapped so I'm only doing this now so I can line my own pockets by feeding off all of your desperate nostalgia." It's like you're literally making up reasons to distrust the guy, when everything he's been saying so far has give no real reason to be skeptical about him. He doesn't want to inject any foreign ideas like his own original antagonist into the stories, he still wants to mostly follow the plots of each game, and he actually wants to learn and understand more about the series so he can please fans. The difference between Kearsley and Shyamalan is that Shyamalan didn't show nearly as much interest in understanding the Avatar franchise as Kearsley is showing with the KH franchise. Much of that humor and spirit was lost when he only focused on condensing the events into a nearly 2-hour time slot, as well as making the most bizarre casting choices in an adaptation ever. Now Kearsley isn't even close to that stage of development yet, so that kind of comparison is unfair to make, but I will say this, he's going into this with a better frame of mind than Shyamalan or the crew from DB Evolution ever did with their products. And quite frankly, I don't think a DB Evolution/Battle of Gods result is ever going to come out of this, because that would suggest that if this bombs, Nomura would have to step up and make an animated KH series happen, and that guy has too much on his plate already to even entertain the idea of writing and producing for a full animated series, even if it is of his own work. Anyway, the fact is that this isn't anywhere beyond the meeting room desk right now. These kinds of judgments will only have any real merit when the show is greenlit. Then we can be concerned about whether or not he's doing things right, because right now he's not really in a position where he can bother with looking at more anyway. He's not claiming to be a "one of us" fan right now, just a moderate fan of the first game who would like to make something amazing happen, and if it does, he wants to understand the rest of it as much as we do. Can't we just, I don't know, appreciate that a creator is expressing this passion and interest in something we care about? Like, for once?

Eh, I have a feeling we're more likely to get something at the usual suspects: E3, TGS, D23, etc. At least, those are the safe bets. I guess it's fair to be optimistic for maybe seeing an odd screenshot or two at those other events, considering that that's what we got from them in the past. But I'm not anticipating anything huge or mind blowing like a world reveal or god forbid, an actual trailer from those kinds of events. They prefer to save those things for viewer-heavy events, and then later sharing them over the Internet. So we might get something relatively small this month, but I'm not holding my breath for something huge quite yet. Waiting till June for that.

Kairi's heart inside Sora. It's really sweet when you get down to it, and if you look back, you can clearly see them hinting at it for most of the game. It's a nice simple plot twist that anyone can follow, whether they've been following this series or not. Everything else that followed...well, you kind of have to be a true fan to have patience with all of that.

Oh man, every time this guy talks about the project, I want it to be greenlit more and more! PLLLLLEEEEEEASE DISNEY, MAKE THIS HAPPEN!! This would make you SO MUCH MONEY, I'm not even kidding, just do it!!!

I don't know, maybe most of the problems I have with him are actually the network's fault. Or maybe I just have a bit of a creative bias. Still, he has contributed a good deal to my childhood, so I certainly still respect him as a creator as far as that goes. I'm just going to be more cautious whenever he offers up something new is all.

Sorry, his Duddly is just too shrill, loud, shouty, and butt-obsessed for me to really be invested. I love Trainor, but this doesn't feel like a good fit for him, I was literally cringing every time I heard him speak in this short. This is just one role I can't get behind. That's just how I feel about it, sorry if you don't agree. I guess I can see everything else you're talking about though. Still, I feel like I've been burned too many times by stuff he's cranked out to really give this one a chance...that and I'm really busy these days, so I have to be pretty selective with what I'm willing to set aside time for when it comes to new series. If I have a good feeling about it, awesome, I'm willing to set aside some time to give it a shot (worked out with Gumball and Loud House for me so far). But if I'm not getting a good feeling from it, then I'm not really going to waste time with it. I've been surprised before by shows that I initially felt unsure about like Adventure Time and Regular Show, but that was back when I had more time to actually diversify and take chances like that. So unfortunately I don't think I can really afford the luxury of giving this one a chance when I don't really have the time or interest to do so, when I could be watching stuff I already like or try out new things I'm actually interested in instead. It's nice to see you're still supporting an influential creator, and maybe it'll actually seem refreshing to you. In the meantime though, I'm going to invest my free time in more interesting things.

God damn it! I was considering canceling my preorder so I could preorder from Square for it's sweepstakes, why are they trying to make me feel conflicted over where to preorder!?

I love Danny Phantom and old FOP, but I've been getting really skeptical of Hartman's stuff as of late. Sorry, but Tuff Puppy really turns me off (it takes a lot to take one of my favorite Nick actors, Jerry Trainor, and make him sound really obnoxious to me...and somehow this show did it in it's first episode), and that combined with how he's mismanaging modern FOP acted as a wakeup call as to how he's not giving me much confidence as a creator anymore these days. Honestly the only thing that interests me that he's shared lately was his ideas about a possible future Danny Phantom series, but apart from that I don't really care for his style anymore. I've even gotten bored of his art style, my tastes have expanded enough to the point where stuff like FOP just looks too simplified for me. I mean just look at the shot with all of the characters in front of the portal in the short, they're all in essentially the same exact pose, and it's one I've seen reused again and again in each of his series, it feels that lazy to me. Still, creators are gonna do what they do, so if he wants to make a show I have absolutely no interest in, fine, whatever, it's not like I have to see it, I just wish it didn't need to rely on my nostalgia in order to get me to notice it.

If they approached it the same way they did with the Jim Carrey Grinch costume, it probably could have worked better. Of course, it certainly helps that the actor supports the appearance better. I mean, I get Carrey = Grinch, but Myers = Cat in the Hat? How did they come to that conclusion? He's not exactly as physical an actor.

Considering the quality of the movie, not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Would have helped if Myers wore the costume better.

Well we know for a fact that the cast rarely, if ever, gets to voice together, so it makes sense that some would be waiting while others may have gotten an early start. And there's always the chance that any scenarios involving their characters haven't been finalized yet, so that will probably have to come first. In any case, it's not like no voice acting has taken place at all, just as far as these two are concerned it'll probably be a while before they're called in.

They all gave me trouble to some degree, though I think I remember being frustrated with Marluxia the most, whether it was CoM or Re:CoM.