Y'know, I can't help but wonder how Sora's mother reacted after the Keyblade War when he came home and had to explain to her that she now has another son (Roxas) and - depending on how you look at it - a new daughter/granddaughter (Xion) lol.
You know, that's a really good question lol. That would be quite the shock to have one child for 15 years, and then he comes home briefly and says these two random kids sort of came from him but aren't him and neither of them particularly look like him (how does one explain the intricacies of nobodies and replicas influenced by the presence of a third heart plus one’s deep feelings for one’s childhood friend to one's mother?) but could you please make sure they're okay and then disappears again…
His poor mother is going to need so much therapy. Someone please write a story where she adopts Sora’s heart hotel and they all comfort each other in Sora’s absence, I would eat that right up and unfortunately don't have it in me to write it myself right now.
3. What combat mechanic(s) are you most excited to play?
The new build mechanic looks cool, so probably that 🤔 I'll be looking forward to what else they unveil as we get more trailers. I'm glad they're bringing the reaction commands back from KH2, I can't remember what exactly they're calling them, maybe the same thing, but I always liked those. They were fun and flashy and cinematic, and they felt really rewarding on the higher difficulty levels when every blow you got in really counted.
24. Speculate about the secret ending.
Cryptic text. A mysterious new location. A cityscape or wilderness. The key phrase for the next game. A couple of familiar characters along with masked or cloaked new ones. Just enough to keep us all speculating for the next 5 to 10 years lol.
25. Guess at the release date.
November or December 2027, OR January or March 2028. I lean towards Square doing a simultaneous worldwide release date this time, which would mean a Friday release date most likely. March 28, 2028 is on a Tuesday though 👀
26. When do you think the next trailer will be shown?
D23 in August! That's the next main big event I could see them advertising at where it wouldn't make more sense to advertise FF7 Revelation instead. I think we'll get our first official Disney world reveal there as well. Maybe even a trailer with English voice acting, though I could see it still being English subtitles with Japanese voice acting, depending on how far out from the release date we are.
What combat mechanics are you looking forward to, and what do you think the secret ending will be?
(The ask game is here for anyone else who wants to join!)
What do you want to see personally explored about Sora in terms of character development in KH4? Personally, I do hope that Sora reflects more on the repercussions of his choices and how they affect those he cares.
Yeah I think that would be a really good arc for him in KH4. His trademark is following his heart, but it would indicate growth and maturity on his end to show him considering how following his heart impacts the people around him.
I do think that a big theme in KH4 will be differing perspectives (just based on what Nomura's said so far), so I could see Sora learning to see things from other people's perspectives. This would tie into him growing/maturing, including in his capacity to empathize (I'd say he's already pretty empathetic, but I do think his character will become more empathetic just because that's a normal part of growing and maturing, and he's a year older now which was an intentional decision by Nomura).
I kind of wonder if he's going to be somewhat sad and gloomy, at least at the start of the game? He's been through a lot after all. We haven't seen a whole lot yet, but I noticed he didn't seem too cheerful in the scene where he steps onto the balcony of his apartment. This is just baseless speculation, but maybe over the course of the game he'll regain his smile (since Nomura brought attention to it with Kairi's letter to him in KH3).
I'm also curious if his darkness will have grown at all, since it seems to grow and evolve with each mainline KH title (it went from a small Shadow in KH1 to the animalistic Anti-Form in KH2 to the more controlled Rage Form in KH3). And then of course there are the character development implications for that, is his darkness more under control or less, etc.
More than anything though, I want him to be able to go home or at least see his friends (the former I think won't happen till the penultimate game of this saga with the final game of the saga being the big showdown between Sora and the Lost Masters/Master of Masters in the main KH universe). I think his interactions with them will say a lot about how his character has grown and changed since KH3. And my gut is that he'll be reunited with Riku at about the halfway point of the game at the earliest and the climax of the game at the latest, and Kairi he'll be reunited with sometime during the climax of the game or the ending. Everyone else I have no idea lol, but the KH3 cover certainly seems to tease the whole gang might end up in Quadratum eventually.
Do you think the reason Nomura has been so scarce on the details regarding Sora, Riku and Kairi's families is deliberate because it would be plot-relevant for Phase 2, since it is focusing heavily on bloodlines(i.e. Missing Link and likely KH4)? What's your opinion?
I think the original reason Nomura was scarce on details about Sora, Riku, and Kairi's families is so that they can easily go on adventures without the audience thinking they're bad kids for abandoning their parents and not fulfilling their duties to their families. Same reason why so many characters in Disney movies are orphans and/or only children, and also why Luke's aunt and uncle got killed off before he felt like he could go with Obi-Wan in A New Hope.
However, I could see Nomura developing things with the Destiny trio's families more later down the line if it served the story and themes. Laurium and Strelitzia being siblings shows he is interested in exploring familial ties more, but I think it's telling he's doing it with characters we don't know much about yet. It might feel a little jarring to finally develop the Destiny trio's families after basically ignoring them up until this point (Sora's mom notwithstanding). However, I could see him delving into their bloodlines if they're descended from any important Keyblade wielders in the past. I kinda hope he doesn't with Sora because I like the idea of Sora not being the chosen one but rising to the occasion because of his strength of heart. Riku and/or Kairi though I could see having important bloodlines, Riku because he was originally chosen by the Keyblade and then Kairi because she's a Princess of Heart and a Keyblade wielder etc.
Do you have any kind of head canons about Sora's Darkness/Heartless and how it perceives Kairi? I've seen people write it as being lethally possessive/protective of Kairi since it owes its existence to her in part, or as a considerable threat to it since she's also its main obstacle in getting Sora to relinquish control over his heart and body to it.
Oh that's a good question! Generally I've gone the possessive/protective-of-Kairi route with Anti-Form/Rage Form. Anti-Form/Rage Form is, in my mind, Sora's raw, primal instincts without his conscience or regular cognition keeping things in check. Hence why he fights with his bare hands with it in KH2. Though with Rage Form allowing you to use Sora's Keyblade in KH3, I do think it's evolving/Sora is gaining more control over it (or is it getting more control over him? Food for thought). I thought the moment where Xehanort took Sora's light and it forcibly transformed him into Rage Form in KH3 was really interesting too because it indicates this is a lore thing and not just a gameplay thing.
But anyway, all of this is to say that because one of Sora's deepest instincts is to protect Kairi, I could still see Anti-Form/Rage Form doing its best to protect her. I do really like the idea of Anti-Form/Rage Form considering Kairi a threat though, since she has a heart of pure light and keeps Sora from giving in to his darkness though. Would be interesting to see Nomura explore this all more.
I do wonder how Rage Form will further evolve in KH4 though--imagine how it would look in the more photorealistic style, could be the stuff of nightmares lol. I also would be intrigued by it coming out around the other characters more like it did around Xehanort. I think it would be interesting to see how everyone reacts, to say the least.
What are your thoughts about the KH4 trailer? It's kinda hilarious watching people reel over the realization that Sora is physically entering adulthood, and the loss of his iconic clown feet lol. There's also speculation that Star Wars might be in KH4 due to the forest area seemingly resembling Endor, though I'm still a tad skeptical since Nomura has stated in the past how difficult it would be to incorporate SW and Marvel properties into KH with all the licensing issues involved.
I was blown away, honestly, the hyperrealistic style looks cool (though I want to see more of it to fully adjust to it), and I like Sora's new outfit/design. People's memes have been really great too lol and so have everyone's reactions to no more clown shoes (for now, my guess is if Sora goes back to a more cartoony world the clown shoes will return).
As for the Star Wars tease, I absolutely think it's happening. I saw the forest area and it does look like Endor (those redwood trees are pretty distinctive), that one shape definitely looks like an AT-ST foot, and Nomura is clearly a massive Star Wars fan (see: Xemnas's not-lightsabers, the not-Death Star Gummi Ship level in KH2, his love for guy-guy-girl trios a la Luke, Han, and Leia and Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padme, getting Luke Skywalker to voice Eraqus, Terra's story in BBS hitting a lot of similar story beats as Anakin's, etc., etc.).
In fact I think the hyperrealistic style for Quadratum, while clearly a reference to FF games, might also be partly so that the transition to a Star Wars world wouldn't be as jarring as it might have been in previous games. This opens up the possibility for other live action worlds too imo so we'll see what else is announced in the lead-up to KH4's release.
Honestly my guess is that it's been Nomura's dream to have Star Wars in KH for years and if he can make it happen, he's gonna try to make it happen, even if he has to go through a lot of negotiations/red tape to do so. Disney also probably realizes that any sort of Star Wars tie-in would print them money, so there's that motivating factor too lol.
(And I know Star Wars isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I do think Nomura will try to get it in KH if he can make it work).
And ROTJ to me would make for some interesting thematic tie-ins, so I'm intrigued that it was Endor that was possibly shown. Sora's new outfit also reminds me of Luke's at the end of ROTJ with the white peeking through to symbolize his victory over the Dark Side/return to the light:
So yeah, some food for thought! Man I really missed all the speculation and analysis leading up to a new KH game. Thanks for the ask!
Do you think that Sora's year-long, solitary journey in the Final World will have a significant impact on his personality?
This is a really interesting question. I think on some level it would have to, right? And KH hasn't shied away from exploring mental health issues before; 0.2 delved into loneliness, isolation, and depression, and KH3 and ReMind dealt with PTSD. Never is that more clear than the scene in the Keyblade Graveyard when Aqua sees the Demon Tide and freezes up.
ReMind provides more context for this moment too. When Sora is searching for Kairi, he traces the connections between his friends' hearts. And when he reaches Aqua's, he doubles over in pain because she's hurting so badly.
And by his own words he recognizes her heart is afraid when she sees a reminder of what she went through in the Realm of Darkness, clearly indicating a trauma reaction on her end.
So, with that in mind, I do think future KH games will likely explore the impact Sora's fate post-KH3 will have on him. There's precedence, and Nomura seems willing to go there. I don't think we're going to get an hours-long treatise about Sora's trauma or PTSD or anything (there simply isn't enough time or enough money in the budget for that, plus I'm not convinced it would really fit the tone of the series), but I do think we'll get a few moments here and there and some dialogue alluding to what he's been through and how it's impacted him.
I think Sora will possibly change too, because he did change quite a lot from KH1 to KH2. He was still identifiably himself of course, but his KH2 self is snarkier, sassier, and quicker to get angry, and I think a lot of that was driven by his frustration with not being able to find Riku and thus get home to Kairi like he promised. So in a rough spot (which he certainly is in post-KH3) I do think we might see a darker side of Sora.
Now, with that being said, I think that while his experiences will continue to shape him, his core personality (his empathy, his sense of humor, his compassion for other people, his care for his friends, his ability to see the good in everything) will remain the same. I can see Nomura going for a sort of "resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity" angle, especially once Sora's friends rescue him (since so much of Sora's power derives from his friends).
Because while Aqua did suffer a lot in BBS, 0.2, KH3, and ReMind, by the end she's back with Terra and Ven and seems to be doing much better. I would imagine Sora will start to heal from whatever he's been through once he's back with his friends, too.
Well, it looks like today explains why Nomura has held off on Sora going to Neku's Shibuya and what he's going to be up until the next mainstream KH title is announced in 2022. Are you interested in TWEWY Neo? Also, do you think there's a meta reason why Nomura designed the main characters of TWEWY to resemble KH's like with Sora/Neku, Kairi/Shiki, Rindo/ Roxas and Tsugumi/Namine?
I am! I’m later at getting into TWEWY than most, but I’ve enjoyed the anime so far, it’s beautifully animated, has awesome music, and the character interactions are so good.
I wonder that too! Nomura does have a history of creating characters that resemble each other (Axel and Reno, Hope Estheim and Ephemer, etc.) so I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s doing something like that again.
