Tai Yasue comments on Kingdom Hearts III's development and reception, and gives new details on Critical Mode

[Raxaimus 300]

In an interview with GameReactor during the 2019 Game Developers Conference, Kingdom Hearts series co-director Tai Yasue took the opportunity to speak about the development of Kingdom Hearts III, while also touching upon the team's plan for the future. Yasue mentioned that one of the primary goals during development was to understand and learn what players wanted out of Kingdom Hearts III.

On the game's upcoming Critical Mode, Yasue said that the development team wanted to "do it the right way," instead of solely altering HP and damage values. They decided to implement new abilities that will resonate with a more technical playstyle, and also focused on making players think about their actions both inside and outside of battle. In addition, Critical Mode will feature AI adjustments to prevent it from feeling unfair, but it will still push players to their limits and encourage them to utilize the game's full array of options, such as cooking meals to gain stat benefits.

Quote

"It is balanced in a way that you could clear it without leveling up, for example, but you really have to think it through. For example, you have to think about the timing of your guarding and using your counter in order to make battles easier to clear."

 

Yasue stated that the team is very happy with the warm and positive response that Kingdom Hearts III has received from both fans and critics, especially since the team was very worried about how fans would react. He said that they really focused on exceeding fans' expectations and wanted to do as much as they could. While other games end up cutting various elements due to cost or time constraints, Yasue feels confident that the team was able to accomplish everything that they wanted to implement. He thanked the fans for their encouragement throughout the development process.

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[Novayon 192]

This sounds good, I am excited

[Xemnas19 0]

I'm in! Let's go! 

[Mark Cummings 39]

Bring it on. 

[Green Sparrow 795]

First off, look at the attached image of this article:

This is the picture of a man on his way to the bathroom when some jerk with a microphone corners him. Tai is truly a patient person.

Secondly:
"...Yasue feels confident that the team was able to accomplish everything that they wanted to implement."

Are you sure about that buddy? Nothing else the team wanted to expand upon?

[Movies798 1,358]

Cool!

[Dustin Lübbers 933]

8 hours ago, Green Sparrow said:

First off, look at the attached image of this article:

This is the picture of a man on his way to the bathroom when some jerk with a microphone corners him. Tai is truly a patient person.

Secondly:
"...Yasue feels confident that the team was able to accomplish everything that they wanted to implement."

Are you sure about that buddy? Nothing else the team wanted to expand upon?

If looks could kill... 

Tai be like " hmm? Who is that red haired girl? Must be from one of our other games i have never seen her before"

Should have told me they were expanding on the difficulty settings this much i would have considered to wait with the game until the dlc is out.

[Darkfire1408 43]

Hopefully they improve flowmotion along with the new abilities. There's too short a window to input after hitting a wall, and you can't control the direction of your slide well.

[Ultima Spark 753]

Usually they save mechanical changes for the Final Mixes (or in this case, I assumed the paid DLC)...this is an interesting decision.

[The Transcendent Key 12,109]

Thanks for showing us this, Raxaimus!

I can't wait for Critical Mode! I'm so excited for the challenge, and I'm really happy the game has gotten good reception, it deserves it!

[Maffy 45]

Too many details and I suppose the game will still be fairly "easy" to people that like that kind of thing, either way. But new abilities are appreciated!

"He said that they really focused on exceeding fans' expectations and wanted to do as much as they could. While other games end up cutting various elements due to cost or time constraints, Yasue feels confident that the team was able to accomplish everything that they wanted to implement."

This hurts. I think even a couple spin offs were more complete than KH3 in various aspects, so to say that compared to other games, KH is truly complete... it's a bit of an insult to me. Unless he's mainly focusing on gameplay elements and such, in which case I do agree that I liked everything in it and there was variety in the things you could do. (Though I still don't know why we were able to breathe under the sea in Caribbean. Did Caribbean get Atlantis' leftovers?)

[cyntix 53]

4 hours ago, Maffy said:

Too many details and I suppose the game will still be fairly "easy" to people that like that kind of thing, either way. But new abilities are appreciated!

"He said that they really focused on exceeding fans' expectations and wanted to do as much as they could. While other games end up cutting various elements due to cost or time constraints, Yasue feels confident that the team was able to accomplish everything that they wanted to implement."

This hurts. I think even a couple spin offs were more complete than KH3 in various aspects, so to say that compared to other games, KH is truly complete... it's a bit of an insult to me. Unless he's mainly focusing on gameplay elements and such, in which case I do agree that I liked everything in it and there was variety in the things you could do. (Though I still don't know why we were able to breathe under the sea in Caribbean. Did Caribbean get Atlantis' leftovers?)

KH Vanilla: Disney editions for casual
KH Final Mix: The real version for the fans.
We just need to be patient.

[Flo-chao 1]

KH BBSFM didn't change the mechanics though... Just added more content.

[The Transcendent Key 12,109]

I'm just wondering when Critical Mode is gonna drop! Because I already Platinumed the whole game with 83 hours and 30 minutes of gameplay. So I'm just craving for that Critical Mode! But in the meantime, I have other things to keep me busy.

Edited April 15, 2019 by The Transcendent Key