Delenn Deszcz
-
Content Count
62 -
Avg. Content Per Day
0 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
1
Posts posted by Delenn Deszcz
-
-
Masanobu Suzui, the co-director of Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory, sat down with Square Enix and decided to "dig a little deeper" into one of the tracks that he worked on-- the song "Hand In Hand", a reoccurring battle soundtrack for the game series.
The first step in the process was choosing the track to begin with!
Quote"Songs were chosen for a variety of reasons - perhaps their beats and tempo make them a natural fit for a rhythm game, maybe they’re popular with fans, accompanied memorable moments, or even simply elicited an emotional reaction from those of us working on the game.
“Hand in Hand” from the original KINGDOM HEARTS fulfils all those criteria, making it an obvious choice for inclusion. In fact, it was one of the first tracks we worked on - and the first to be completed."
The second step that Suzui talks about is cutting the song down-- some tracks of the game are quite long, and they had to figure out what part of the song they wanted to use for the gameplay.
Quote"...We identified the section of the track that would be the easiest to play as a rhythm game, and also included the key phrases of the song. From there, we made a cut - essentially we brought out the specific part we wanted to use in the game."
Suzui then explains how a document is then made, which concerns how they want the stage to look while it's being played. This includes what they want to show from Traverse Town, such as Cid's shop, the hotel, the item shop, and the Lady and the Tramp fountain. Afterwards, the enemies are chosen.
Quote"We had several goals when it came to the Heartless, Unversed and Nobodies that Sora and his allies would face on Field Battle stages. Firstly, Melody of Memory is intended to be a celebration of the KINGDOM HEARTS series, so we wanted to bring out the individuality and character of each enemy from the original games.
It was also important to make sure that the actions by Sora and other party characters when attacking enemies would have enough variation not to become overly repetitive.
In addition, we wanted to make it easy for the player to be able to read the enemy movements and aimed for a structure with several predictable movement patterns, rather than a different pattern for every single enemy.
We listed all the enemies from the original KINGDOM HEARTS games and put them into broad categories, based on criteria like whether they walk or fly, if they’re sedate or active, and whether they had a lot of HP and were difficult to defeat.
We knew that the enemy types would differ for each world so when we were designing “Hand in Hand”, we had to ensure that all movement types were accounted for when making the final selection of enemies to include."
When everything has been picked and chosen, a single team member is asked to create the note sequence. Suzui explains that the team member had to listen to "Hand In Hand" a numerous amount of times to create what Suzui calls an "overarching concept for the stage - normal at the beginning, followed by some difficulty spikes around the middle and end of the track.".
Quote"They then created separate note sequences for the three difficulty levels with a specialised tool that displays provisional models.
The most important points to consider when creating the note sequence were not only whether it was fun to play, but also whether or not the enemy selection correctly reflected the KINGDOM HEARTS universe, and whether the input from the player matched the emotional climaxes of the track.
It was very valuable for us to have big KINGDOM HEARTS fans among the development staff who would pore over these points from their perspective."
After that, Suzui explains that it's then time to revise and edits to the soundtrack and the stage itself.
Quote"Once any track was completed to a certain level, the person working on it filled out a sheet that was circulated internally and gathered the team’s feedback. This included opinions on overall direction, such as how the track, the world, and enemy choice linked together and whether it felt true to KINGDOM HEARTS.
People also wrote specific requests: for example, this particular note sequence at this particular time should be changed, this particular moment needs a different action - things like that. After using this feedback to make further adjustments, the track reached its first completed form.
As I mentioned, “Hand in Hand” was actually the first track we completed with this process. At this early stage in development, we weren’t using the most up-to-date sound effects, nor were the motions for Sora and the other characters fully adjusted. But we could still see for ourselves how fun it was to play along with the song.
It was exhilarating to picture the final game and we could imagine lots of people enjoying it, once it had been polished! This helped us more confident that the game - and the track - was progressing properly."
It doesn't stop there by just revising and then sending the stage off to production. They must test the stage over and over again to make sure that it's perfect for playability.
Quote"Towards the end of the development of the game, once the note sequences for tracks had been determined to a sufficient standard, we played them all across all the difficulty levels. Naturally, that included “Hand in Hand.”
These tests let us make repeated improvements and additions, such as evening out any discrepancies in quality due to the early stage in development that the track was made, and adjusting it to be in line with the most recent guidelines for note sequences. We also improved visibility and refined enemy movements - this had a big impact on the difficulty level and how noticeable the prompts were.
Finally, a few leaders looked over everything again to ensure consistency, and the development version was fully complete. There may have been a few adjustments later due to feedback from Quality Assurance (QA) and external testers, but the bulk of the work was complete."
Suzui concludes the blog by saying:
Quote"I hope you found that interesting. As you can see, even a single track in KINGDOM HEARTS Melody of Memory was a big undertaking. Each one is hand-crafted to provide an enjoyable rhythm-action experience, and it’s gratifying to see so many players enjoying it now that it’s released."
You can check out the full article on the Square Enix Blog.
What are your thoughts on these details? Did you find anything fascinating or surprising? Let us know in the comments below!
-
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!
-
The Official Square Enix e-store has started pre-orders for Sora, Riku, and Kairi Silver Charm sets, Roxas, Axel, and Xion Silver Charm sets, and Terra, Ventus, and Aqua Silver Charm sets, which go for ¥19,800 ($179.56) each. The charms will be available on September 20th, 2020.
Credits to Aibo for the tip!
(Roxas, Axel, and Xion Silver Charm set)
(Sora, Riku, and Kairi Silver Charm set)
(Terra, Ventus, Aqua Silver Charm set)
Check out the individual charms on our gallery below!
-
Kingdom Hearts III has been given a nomination for Role-Playing Game of the Year at the 23rd Annual D.I.C.E. Awards as a finalist. The other finalists for this award include Disco Elysium, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield, and The Outer Worlds.
The winner of this award will be revealed at the D.I.C.E. Awards, which takes place on Thursday, February 13th at the Aria Resort in Las Vegas. Please stay tuned for more details.
-
Yoko Shimomura, the well-renowned music composer of the Kingdom Hearts franchise, was recently interviewed by Hatalabo, a Japanese website made to help inspire others in their careers. In this interview, she talked about how her passion for composing music for the Kingdom Hearts series pushed her into the spotlight. This helped pave the way for her to start working on other Square Enix soundtracks.
Thanks to KH13's Ryuji for the translation! Part of the interview is below!
QuoteInterviewer: So you joined SQUARE ENIX in 2003, correct?
Shimomura: I'll confess that, at the time, I was thinking of stopping my freelancer worker temporarily to take care of myself. I was pregnant at the time as well so I thought: "No, I cannot work this way. Straining myself will be bad for the baby." I also wasn't very interested with my freelancing job so I wondered if I could become a full-time housewife.
Interviewer: But instead, you ended up finding work for yourself.
Shimomura: I really needed to find time to rest, I thought. But then I got the opportunity to work with SQUARE ENIX. My first work was to compose songs for KINGDOM HEARTS [more specifically, the first game: Kingdom Hearts I]. I could hardly rest. I composed songs until probably about 20 hours before my daughter was born. I stayed up until 4 AM listening and fine tuning the music demos; and then my daughter was about to be born. I dragged my weak feet to the hospital. I took a 2 month break after her birth, and immediately resumed my work after that.
Interviewer: Woah, that must've been really tough!
Shimomura: As you know, composers have a deadline to submit their work for the game. I try to keep a balance between the three things I do: working, creating music and living. During my time at SQUARE ENIX, as I was in my thirties, I took a 3 month break. But even then, I just wanted to create music. At the time, we were transitioning from the Super Famicon [called the Super NES outside Japan] and the PlayStation, so I thought to myself: "Do we have better hardware?"
We will provide translations for the rest of the interview later. Be sure to follow KH13 on social media to stay informed!
-
The Re:Mind trailer came out (officially) on the 10th of this month! A lot has stirred in the Kingdom Hearts community and fanbase, and we've finally had time to soak it all in! What was most exciting to you about the trailer?
Darkfire1408 reacted to this -
Birth By Sleep has multiple optional Keyblades that you can use! Which one is your favorite?
-
Many people that work in voice acting often have a huge selection of voices that they can put on for a multitude of characters--to make them soft and cuddly, or evil and harsh. Out of the four options here, who is your favorite voice actor?
For fun, why are they your favorite, and who is your favorite character that they voice? -
Love it, hate it, or meme it, the cooking minigame in Twilight Town is an interesting part of Kingdom Hearts III. There are four aspects of the minigame--which one is your favorite?
-
Due to our news team member KHWaterblock posting a lot of KH3 music recently and uploading it onto YouTube for everyone to see, we decided to talk about the music from the series today! We had recalled that Xemnas had FOUR battle themes, if you can believe it. (He deserves it though, don't you think?) Which battle theme was your favorite for when you fought him?
-
That trailer really was something amazing, wasn't it? There were a lot more questions than answers but we're excited to see those answers! Personally, I really loved the possibility of seeing a Lingering Will VS Terranort fight! I'm super hyped for it! If we didn't mention something that you personally thought was awesome, let us know down below!
-
That's right, we're about to ask you guys to look deep inside of yourself--look really deep, and don't be afraid to call yourself out. How many hours a week do you sit and play video games? (I usually play for 20 hours a week, about, give or take.)
-
Apollo 11 returned from the moon today! Over at the social media team, we wondered about space, and what's out there. The biggest topic that came up and the one we talked about the most was the planets in our own solar system. Which one do you think we should explore more of in our solar system?
The Transcendent Key reacted to this -
Yesterday they announced a whole lotta Marvel stuff! They announced a few new series, a few new movies...and we're pretty excited here at the Social Media team! So, we wanted to ask--what are you most excited to see?
The Transcendent Key reacted to this -
Since the mention of new Kingdom Hearts figurines are all over the news, I thought it would be interesting to ask you guys how many figurines you have! I know many of us on the social media team have quite a few, and we have someone in the news department who is a full-blown collector of them. So, we wanted to ask you guys--do you guys collect Kingdom Hearts figurines and statues? How many do you guys have? If you want, let us know which ones are your favorites down below!
The Transcendent Key reacted to this -
Good news! Super Monkey Ball is getting a new game (releasing on October 31st in Japan)! We're pretty excited over at the social team, so we wanted to ask you guys what your favorite game from the series is! (Since there are a lot, I couldn't put down every game because the poll options only allow so many choices, so I put down the bigger titles. Let us know if there are others that you love, though!)
-
Due to the recent news about the James Bond series, we decided to ask you guys who your favorite James Bond is! There's a multitude, and each actor brings their own unique thing to the table. Personally, I liked Connery, but I think Craig did a good job, too. What about you guys?
-
Did you hear about the new Space Jam sequel they're planning to come out with? They cast keeps on growing, with Don Cheadle joining in on the basketball action! With the talk of Loony Tunes going around, who's your favorite Loony Tunes character?
The Transcendent Key and Randallmelry reacted to this -
Did you guys see that new Pokemon trailer? Talking about it with the social media team brought us on the discussion about what our favorite generation was, and we decided to ask you guys the same thing for today's poll! So! What's your favorite gen?
Randallmelry reacted to this -
So anyway. As a 21 year old woman. I got back into Club Penguin.
(Club Penguin Rewritten is what I'm talking about, mostly. It's the same thing, though. They manage to fight Disney on it for keeping it up by using the excuse "educational purposes", can you believe that?)
Anyway, I'm back on Club Penguin, and I was wondering if I should join in on Runescape too, since my friend is on that. Then I got to thinking about other old games that I used to be on when I was younger. MapleStory, Neopets...there were so many websites that I used to be a part of online just for the fun of it! What about you guys? When you were younger, what online games did you play around with?
-
Get out your streamers and party hats! Today is Sonic's birthday! He's turning 28 this year, can you even imagine? Today, in celebration, we wanna ask you guys who your favorite character is. Obviously, we can't list all of the characters because, let's be real, there are loads of them, so we're listing a few of the more popular ones. If we don't list yours, let us know down below!
-
Since Marvel decided to place all of their shows on Netflix, and since the final season of Jessica Jones was released, we decided to ask you guys what your favorite Netflix Marvel show is!
The Transcendent Key reacted to this -
Every game offers something interesting to a player, but for each person, there is always something that draws them in, either it be graphics or maybe gameplay, what is it that drives you to preorder or even just buy a game?
-
Today, the entire KH13 team is dealing with some social media fun times, so we got curious and wanted to ask you guys what your favorite social media platforms are! (Mine is Twitter; I run a Roxas parody account ROFLMAO.) If there's a website or an app that we missed, let us know down below!
Looking Back on March Caprice 2020: A Celebration of Kingdom Hearts
in Kingdom Hearts - General
Posted
March Caprice: A Celebration of Kingdom Hearts was a virtual gathering of fans of the Kingdom Hearts series that showcased the talents, passions, and projects of the community! We wanted to provide this virtual gathering as an opportunity to have the community come together to celebrate each other and our work, as well as celebrate the anniversary of our beloved Kingdom Hearts series!
During this event, anyone and everyone was encouraged to sign up and show off their content; it ranged from podcasts about the game to video streams to even game mods. The event took place last weekend from March 27th to March 28th online over the course of two days during Kingdom Hearts' 19th Anniversary. If you missed the event though, that's okay! You're always free to check out the Discord (in the #current-event channel) and the artist alley on the website, which showcased everyone's amazing works, ranging from wow-inducing Minecraft creations to beautiful charms.
The list of events during the March Caprice is as follows, starting from the first video posted:
(Events in bold were livestreams on Twitch and might only be around for a limited time!)
MARCH 27th
MARCH 28th
We hope to see this event take place next year for Kingdom Hearts' 20th Anniversary!
View full article