UPDATED: Kingdom Hearts III to have approximately 80+ hours of playable content, including 40-50 hours in main story gameplay

[Aquaberry 759]

Following a hands-on experience of an hour-long demo of Kingdom Hearts III, Geek.com has published an insightful review of playing the third main installation of the series from the perspective of a newcomer. In it, Tony Polanco describes his positive experience of playing through the Olympus and Toy Story demo.

 

While talking about the various gameplay elements, he adds in comments made by a Square Enix PR representative on what to expect from the final version of the game. He states:

A Square-Enix PR representative explained that Sora is more agile than in past installments. For example, he can now wall run up shimmering vertical surfaces. He also has some context-sensitive motions.

 

[...]

 

Players can now equip up to three different keyblades at once. They can also level up each keyblade to make them stronger. Before, there was no incentive to continue using keyblades obtained from previous worlds since the newer keyblades were more powerful. Now, keyblades you have a fondness for are viable even later in the game since you can level them up.

 

[...]

 

In addition to the main story, players can look forward to several mini-games. One is a cooking game with Remy from Ratatouille. You must find ingredients hidden across several of the worlds and use them to create new recipes. There are 20 different old-school Tiger Toys/Game & Watch style 2D side scrolling games based on Mickey cartoons from the 1930s and 40s. Building your Gummi ship (used for traveling to each world) is pretty much a mini-game of its own. Kingdom Hearts 3 is around 40-50 hours if you stay on the critical path. Including the mini-games, players can expect 80+ hours of content.

It seems that players can advance through the game's main story in approximately 40-50 hours, or about double that time considering additional playable content.

 

Click here to read the full review on Geek.com!

 

Many thanks to Tony Polanco for talking to us about his experience and confirming that these statements were made by a Square Enix PR representative.

 

UPDATE: Geek.com has updated the following statement to clarify that the game lengths given to them by the Square Enix PR representative were approximate, but the exact length has not yet been finalized as the development of the game continues towards its release date.

I was told Kingdom Hearts 3 is around 40-50 hours if one stays on the critical path. Including the mini-games, players can possibly expect 80+ hours of content. With that said, Square-Enix has yet to finalize the game’s exact length as there are still many months to go before release date.

How will you be playing Kingdom Hearts III when it comes out? Will you be speeding through the main story or enjoying it in full on your first playthrough? Let us know in the comments!

 

Click here to view the article

[Jingilator 922]

80+ HOURS?! I knew it was gonna be big, but hot DAMN am I even more pumped than before!

[RoyalXIII 18]

This is awesome, but I hope not all the +30hrs is just minigames/gummi ship. 

 

I would love some side-quests, especially story-based side-quests which the KH series unfortunately lacks most of the time.

 

Although, to be completely honest, +30hrs of minigames is quite terrifying to me. Especially after Platinuming the series on PS4. 

 

I can share some horror stories... Many "Ice Cream Beat" related... *shiver*

[KHLegendIII 709]

This was one type of news I was waiting for; the amount of hours for the main story, and I'm really happy about this, but we'll see if it holds true when we play it. I might take my time with it, by grinding, exploring, doing some mini-games as I progress through the main story.

Edited July 29, 2018 by KHLegendIII

[Aquaberry 759]

This is awesome, but I hope not all the +30hrs is just minigames/gummi ship. 

 

I would love some side-quests, especially story-based side-quests which the KH series unfortunately lacks most of the time.

 

Although, to be completely honest, +30hrs of minigames is quite terrifying to me. Especially after Platinuming the series on PS4. 

 

There are other additional content apart from mini-games, such as secret bosses, the Cups in Olympus, looking for items and obtaining special Keyblades. Also, there might be some extra story stuff to do after you've finished the main story of a world. (In a recent interview it was said there won't be any skippable world, but it didn't say there won't be any skippable story content for these worlds.) Am personally hoping for some side quests too

[John Horton 111]

Oh wow that's so Cool

[Merilly 438]

I am also hoping for side quests to be included. Minigames are the bane of my existence and even having just 10 hours of them feels like an awful amount in comparison to the actual plot. Side quests could also provide more variety and add story tidbits here and there without resorting to strange minigames.

 

No wonder they're running out of space. I hope it really consists of secret bosses and the like as well and not have too many mini games... They're a nice extra but if they had to cut other content because of them, it feels a little redundant to have such an abundance of small little games.

 

Either way, I'll wait and see. I hope not too many of them are mandatory though.

 

Apart from that, I think 40-50 hours of pure main story seems like an adequate amount. It surely won't include every little thing we'd like to see or resolve everything but I think it's better than a plot that takes too long and may become more confusing than necessary.

It also increases its replay value for me since I'm more prone to replaying games that take up to 50 hours than anything beyond that. I know that people can invest hundreds and thousands of hours into one game but that's not my cup of tea.

 

All in all, it was to be expected the moment they said they were running out of space, but it's great to hear an actual number since that has been a question a lot of people had. If that time is true. I remember FFXV being greatly overestimated in that regard.

[Movies798 1,359]

Truly one of the best news I heard! So the total pf playing the main game is 40-50 hours but 80+hours of doing a much bunch mini-games, level grinding, and playing the main quest as well. Great news to hear but now all I need to know is how many total playable worlds will be in KH3. I hope there's more to announced after they release a Big Hero 6 trailer.

[KingdomHearts3 2,591]

Wow, that is a TON of content. And a long game too! I love it! Can’t wait to see a new trailer with some more story beef to it.

[VocaloidLover13 165]

Oh my gosh, I'm almost dying with the hypee! 

KH2 had around 10h of story I guess, though overall gameplay I am not so sure. Does anyone know how to make a good comparison between this expected lenght of gameplay (of KH3) and KH2's gameplay? 

The hype is reall anyways!

Edited July 29, 2018 by VocaloidLover13

[RikuFangirl2008 1,368]

Holey Moley at the Country of the Musketeers! O.O

[Seyin95 175]

My 'breakdown' would be:

 

2/3 hours of Young Xehanort/Young Eraqus (playable)

30 hours of Sora going through the worlds ( including the Roxas arc)

5 Hours of another character ( Riku?)

5 hours for the Keyblade Graveyard section

2/3 hours- Final Battle

[ocean's rage 774]

good to know theres plenty of additional content, hope theres a few extra bosses

[Iamkingdomhearts1000 1,170]

So just to answer a question, will KH III be longer then KH II in terms of story?

[KH4Real 749]

Nice I was afraid that it could be rushed like FFXV.

 

 

So just to answer a question, will KH III be longer then KH II in terms of story?

 

Ofcourse a world seems to be big as one KH game;

[Scsigs 119]

In addition to the main story, players can look forward to several mini-games. One is a cooking game with Remy from Ratatouille. You must find ingredients hidden across several of the worlds and use them to create new recipes. There are 20 different old-school Tiger Toys/Game & Watch style 2D side scrolling games based on Mickey cartoons from the 1930s and 40s. Building your Gummi ship (used for traveling to each world) is pretty much a mini-game of its own. Kingdom Hearts 3 is around 40-50 hours if you stay on the critical path. Including the mini-games, players can expect 80+ hours of content.

PLEASE let Ignis from FFXV be in this game! "I've come up with a new recipe." Imagine how epic a cook-off with him would be.

[Dustin Lübbers 933]

Truly one of the best news I heard! So the total pf playing the main game is 40-50 hours but 80+hours of doing a much bunch mini-games, level grinding, and playing the main quest as well. Great news to hear but now all I need to know is how many total playable worlds will be in KH3. I hope there's more to announced after they release a Big Hero 6 trailer.

Yes! Its no fallout 4 where is spend 160 hours but still i will see how i can stretch it

[RoyalXIII 18]

There are other additional content apart from mini-games, such as secret bosses, the Cups in Olympus, looking for items and obtaining special Keyblades. Also, there might be some extra story stuff to do after you've finished the main story of a world. (In a recent interview it was said there won't be any skippable world, but it didn't say there won't be any skippable story content for these worlds.) Am personally hoping for some side quests too

 

Oh yeah, I can't believe secret bosses slipped my mind lol Hopefully they're actually fun to beat and not a frustrating headache.

 

I think I sort-of rounded up Cups into mini-games too, probably cuz they felt mini-game-y in KH2 (with how you didn't get EXP and needing to beat scores for the Journal).

 

I was honestly wondering if they're going do Olympus for that or bring back Mirage Arena. Both because it seems "Olympus Coliseum" is now just "Olympus" and I believe Nomura stated in a old interview about KH2FM that he wanted the Organization XIII rematches in the Coliseum, but decided not to because it wouldn't make sense or something like that.

 

With the Mirage Arena, as we seen in BbSFM, it doesn't seem to matter since characters in that were holograms/mirages. Which would give the KH team more breathing room to do whatever. Of course, this is just me rambling lol hell why not both right?

 

Also I think the whole "no skippable worlds" thing was a error of translation, or something like that. I could be wrong on that though.  

[The Transcendent Key 12,109]

Thanks for sharing this gloriously wonderful news with us, Aquaberry!

 

Holy dang, 80+ hours of gameplay!? That is insane! It's everything I would hope for when it comes to Kingdom Hearts III! Considering how long we've waited, 80+ hours is perfect, as it gives us just the amount of time to truly be able to enjoy every little bit of the game, from the story to the mini-games to the secret bosses, to any other type of content! Just thinking of how much there will be to discover....gahh, it makes me feel so hyped! And I'm pretty sure I'll delve more than 100 hours into the game, since I take my time with the KH games...GAHHH, THE HYPE!

 

I really hope Critical Mode is available from the get-go, though, cuz I wanna do everything in my first playthrough!

[Aquaberry 759]

 

Also I think the whole "no skippable worlds" thing was a error of translation, or something like that. I could be wrong on that though.  

 

Ah no that was our own mistake during translation! He said that there won't be any skippable world's since most people go thru every one anyway

[Connected 978]

Ofcourse a world seems to be big as one KH game;

they reference to 0.2. but still pretty big!