Nowadays, when it comes to JPG, players first think of the royal story style of justice and victory, and then the cartoon art language left over from the long history of development. Therefore, many young players who are accustomed to the next generation of European and American AAA masterpieces often have a first impression of "rough modeling" in the face of many new JRPG games in recent years.
With epic's official release of Unreal Engine 5, GameLook couldn't help but wonder what kind of chemistry the latest development technology would produce when it met a stylized JRPG.
On April 10, GameLook's question was answered by SE. On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Kingdom Hearts IP, SE and Disney released a promotional video for Kingdom Hearts 4 and an IP adaptation of the mobile game based on the Unreal Engine 5. With the blessing of the next generation of technology, Kingdom Hearts seems to be becoming more and more like Final Fantasy.
A "fairy tale" story depicted in Unreal 5
It should be noted that although it is called Kingdom Hearts 4, this work is not the fourth work in the Kingdom Hearts series in the past 20 years. Since there were also decimal numbers such as 1.5, 2.5, and 2.8 and non-numeric numbers in the previous game, in fact, Kingdom Hearts 4 is the 14th work of this IP (this does not include a remake).
In terms of timeline, the story of Kingdom Hearts 4 is set on the "other side of reality" of Kingdom Hearts 3, which can be understood as a parallel world from the same period as Kingdom Hearts 3, so that players can enjoy the game even if they have not played the previous game.
Timeline of Kingdom Hearts' historical works
Unlike the previous 13 works, the art style of Kingdom Hearts 4 has undergone a huge change.
According to the official release of the PV, "Kingdom Hearts 4" changed the previous cartoon style, and the image of the protagonist Sora was obviously more mature.
Compared with the characters, the scenes in the PV are highly realistic, especially in the modern city based on Tokyo, whether it is the rows of high-rise buildings or the alternating flashing signal lights, which are no different from the real Tokyo. If it weren't for the final appearance of Goofy and Donald Duck in the PV, it would be hard for you to realize that this is still the "fairy tale" story of Kingdom Hearts.
According to people familiar with the matter, the official release of the promotional film is based on the version of Unreal Engine, due to the low cost of migration, the official has decided that the follow-up development will be turned to Unreal Engine 5 to achieve a more stunning realistic style.
Also benefiting from technological advances is the in-game combat system. Judging from the PV, the key blade used by Sora in Kingdom Hearts 4 will have a more significant and rich mimic change, while the obstacles in the battlefield can also provide more available terrain or interaction methods. The consistent ARPG elements of the previous game seem to have been further improved in Kingdom Hearts 4, which brings players a more enjoyable combat experience of the next generation while taking a leap in image quality.
However, if you are a nitpicking picture quality party, just looking at the PV of Kingdom Hearts 4, you may not think how exquisite its still slightly childish character modeling is. But if you put Kingdom Hearts 4 in the entire 20-year history of IP development, perhaps you can better understand why the transformation of Kingdom Hearts 4 makes this new work particularly exciting.
Atypical typical JRPG
Although it has been 20 years since the release of the first generation of products, in the entire history of JRPG development, "Kingdom Heart" is still only a "junior", but due to the joint efforts of SE and Disney, it has become another episode of JRPG globalization and all-ageing.
Although the official has never explicitly explained what "Kingdom Hearts" is so far, if you have played the previous game, the Kingdom Hearts series has a very typical JRPG theme: players need to meet the same "hearted" friends and defeat those "heartless" enemies through the wonderful adventures of the protagonist Sora.
According to the setting, all life is composed of three elements: body, soul and heart, and a life that loses its soul will die, and a life that loses its heart will become invisible. The Heart is guarded by a "Gate" and a "Keyhole", and as such, the protagonist of the game, Sora, fights with a key-like weapon called the Keyblade. The mindful and the mindless constitute the two opposing spaces of the world of light and the world of darkness, respectively.
All of the above descriptions obviously have a very typical JRPG temperament, but Disney's deep involvement has made "Kingdom Hearts" move towards an "atypical" development direction, and has also become a word-of-mouth work that makes players around the world enjoy it.
Taking "Kingdom Hearts 3" released in 2019 as an example, there are 9 different parallel worlds for players to explore, but only 2 of them are the continuation of the plot of Kingdom Hearts itself, and the remaining 7 worlds are staged in seven Disney classics such as "Frozen" and "Pirates of the Caribbean", and players will embark on a journey with popular Disney characters such as Donald Duck and Goofy, and can even collect Mickey Mouse badges during the adventure.
At the same time, Kingdom Hearts 3 also inserts a large number of mini-games derived from the theme of the current world, such as in the world of Frozen, players can enjoy skis flying up and down, and in the world of Pirates of the Caribbean, they can drive Captain Jack's pirate ship for a pleasant naval battle. Coupled with the consistent ARPG gameplay in the main line of Kingdom Hearts, the playability of this work has a clear advantage over the traditional turn-based JRPG that only focuses on the plot.
Disney worlds for all ages, a joyful story experience, and a variety of gameplay have made Kingdom Hearts an "atypical typical JRPG." It's not hard to understand why, at a time when JRPGs are becoming increasingly depressed, as of February 2019, the cumulative global sales of the Kingdom Hearts series have exceeded 30 million copies.
From the next generation to mobile games, keeping pace with the times is the fundamental way out of JRPG
The mobile game released with Kingdom Hearts 4, titled Kingdom Hearts: Missing-Link, will open closed beta this year.
According to the official introduction, this game depicts a "blank era" in the Kingdom Hearts series. Players will explore or battle on maps connected to the real world, freely exploring the in-game world and collecting "fragments" scattered around the world for various enhancements. As long as the player moves with the phone, the game will connect with the player's actions and automatically fight or collect fragments, and the game also has a multiplayer mode that supports up to 6 people to play at the same time.
Although the picture quality is not as good as "Kingdom Heart 4", but whether according to the PV content or the official introduction, this mobile game also surpasses the traditional JRPG adaptation mobile game in all aspects, not only in terms of graphic performance is more modern, its gameplay also has many similarities with the popular open world category and MMO games. It can also be seen that SE and Disney hope to meet the increasing demands of players through more up-to-date product performance.
In fact, in the principle of "backwardness is to be beaten", "Kingdom Heart" itself has a personal experience.
In 2013, SE and Disney jointly launched the first web social game of the Kingdom Hearts series, Kingdom Hearts χ, which also widely linked SE's Final Fantasy series, and many classic character images from the latter appeared in this web game, which also set off a boom for JRPG fans.
However, with the rise of smartphones and the depression of web games, in 2015, SE, which was already very "keeping pace with the times" in the Japanese factory, launched the iOS and Android dual-platform mobile game Kingdom Heart Unchained χ based on the "Kingdom Heart χ" before the "Kingdom Heart χ" was closed, and then updated and renamed "Kingdom Heart Union X" in 2017.
Despite the patching, the backwardness of the drawing style and gameplay made it difficult for this product with a good story to accumulate and eventually end the operation. Therefore, in this 20th anniversary event, SE also released a free offline version for mobile gamers to continue reading the story of Kingdom Hearts Union X after stopping serving.
It is precisely because of the lessons of the past that both SE and Disney realize that even a good story is difficult to support the long-term operation of a JRPG alone. Only by keeping pace with the times and keeping up with the trend of the industry can players, especially global players outside Japan, who have no nostalgic foundation, truly feel the charm of JRPG.
If you associate this story with the Japanese MMO reported by GameLook a few days ago, it is not difficult to find that whether it is China's overseas manufacturers or Japanese manufacturers that have JRPG accumulation, they are combining the current situation and their own advantages to find a way out for the development of JRPG in the new era. And this is a valuable lesson for all game developers: even if good stories never end, good games don't just have good stories.
····· End ·····
GameLook Daily Game Industry Report
Global vision / depth is material