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Square and Disney Team Up for Kingdom Hearts

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the goofy-versus-tidus dept.

jaredcat writes "Ever wonder what would happen if the incredibly creative talents of Squaresoft and Disney got together? Well I never did, but that didn't seem to stop them. The first joint production of Square and Disney, Kingdom Hearts, was just released in Japan. Its an RPG with a Square CGI, a Square story, a Disney sense of humor, and Square and Disney charectars. If the opening movie is any indication of what's to come when Kingdom Hearts becomes available in the US, its going to be the best thing to hit the PS2 since, well, Final Fantasy X :)." Very positive review. Gotta admit, I'm intrigued. Update by J : Check out this review too, with a ton of screenshots, from the GIA: "By all rights [it] should be an awkward, conflated mess... instead, it's an epic piece of crossover fanfiction."

7 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Slashdotted! Naturally. by dmomo · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Slashdotted.


    The Gaming Intelligence Agency has a short write up on it.

    Also, you can see a movie at rpg Gamer.


    The CGI looks incredible. It is weird having Final Fantasy characters mixed in with Goofy and Tarzaan, though.


    I wonder what inspired this?!? It looks cool (visually), and Square does tend to make great games, but what were they thinking? What is Disney up to? Why not just a Disney character RPG? This is an odd marriage. Then again, Street Fighter v. X-Men worked well. I saw some screen shots. The Alice in Wonderland parts look great.

  2. Doesn't seem so cool by reo_kingu · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I saw this in the store the other day (I live in Japan), and it didn't seem too impressive. Granted, all I saw was the box and the intro screen they had running on a demo machine (no controllers plugged in), but my impression was that it seems to be aimed at little kids. Anyway, it didn't make me feel like buying it or even want to play it.

    Mod away, I just thought someone who reads at -1 might want to know :)

    By the way, I am a Square/RPG fan and I do own a PS2 so it's not like I'm biased against it for some weird reason.

  3. Uhhh by sielwolf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...its going to be the best thing to hit the PS2 since, well, Final Fantasy X

    Excluding Metal Gear Solid 2 and GTA 3 which, if I remember correctly, were much better received critically and sold more than FFX.

    Final Fantasy has basically become watching a DVD with a broken pause feature: you have to intermittantly hit a button to get the movie started again.

    Freedom Force, on the other hand, is as close to a pen-n-paper RPG experience you can get. Exciting, personal, and thrilling. Oh and replayable. Another classic from Crave/Looking Glass.

    BTW Kingdome Hearts does look cool though. It seems Sony is going to try and take the demographic they don't have: the kids from Nintendo.

    --
    What is music when you despise all sound?
  4. Re:Before anyone gets too excited: by enol · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Damn Fritz Hollings! If he was even a little _less_ evil, I would get this game.

    I own nearly all Square games that made it across the Pacific but this is one I won't picking up because all I'll see when I'm playing it will be "you've done it..you're one of us...Disney 0wns j00 now.."

    Gawd, couldn't anyone just tell me (or lie!) it sucks as much as Evermore? :-)

  5. so much for that by azosx · · Score: 2, Interesting

    As I was browsing through the screenshots, IGN suddenly made all the media subscription only. Must be a clever ploy at getting the slashdot effect to work for you.

  6. Re:Before anyone gets too excited: by SirRichardPumpaloaf · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Whether you buy it or not is not going to make any difference to Disney, so I say if you want it, get it. You only live once, why deny yourself this little pleasure? The companies that sell you the gas for your car are far more evil than Disney, anyway. Sell your car and buy all the Disney crap your heart desires! :-)

  7. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    I'd seen this at last year's E3. My reaction, and that of everyone I knew, was 'Why?'.


    Oh, and a unanimous certanity that the kid hero is going to turn out to be Mickey in the end, since the mouse was very conspicuous by his absence in all the bits they were showing.


    This is the sort of game where you wonder if the history of making the thing might not be more interesting than the actual game itself. Who approached who with the idea of 'Let's make a game that jams together the wholly-alien styles of Square and Disney together, with lots of fannish references!'? Who's paying money to who? Who's publishing it in the States: Disney Interactive, Square, Sony, some un-named party to be named later?


    Meanwhile, Treasure is working on no less than three different Tiny Toons games. Sigh.