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November's PS Plus Extra and Premium games include 'Skyrim' and 'Kingdom Hearts III'
Subscribers are getting 'Skyrim,' several Tom Clancy and Kingdom Hearts games, five more Ratchet & Clank titles and much more this month.
Historic UK Proms music festival to include its first video game concert
For the first time, the UK’s annual Proms classical music festival will feature a concert dedicated to video game compositions.
'Kingdom Hearts IV' features a new look for series protagonist Sora
Square Enix is developing a new mainline Kingdom Hearts game.
The Kingdom Hearts trilogy is coming to Nintendo Switch on February 10th
Square Enix has announced that the Kingdom Hearts trilogy will arrive to the Nintendo Switch via cloud on February 10th.
The Kingdom Hearts trilogy is coming to Nintendo Switch
You'll need a decent internet connection as the games will stream from the cloud.
Kingdom Hearts' Sora is the final 'Super Smash Bros. Ultimate' fighter
Doom Slayer will be available as a Mii Costume as well.
Kingdom Hearts makes its PC debut on March 30th via the Epic Games Store
The Kingdom Hearts series will make its PC debut on March 30th.
Eight ‘Kingdom Hearts’ games make their debut on Xbox One
Kingdom Hearts III coming to Xbox One was a big deal -- it was the first time a game from the series was published on one of Microsoft's platforms, and it was the first time a mainline Kingdom Hearts game wasn't exclusive to a PlayStation console. Xbox gamers can play even more of the series starting today -- Square Enix has published Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX and Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue on Xbox One. The two compilations comprise eight games and one movie, meaning fans can play almost every entry in the Kingdom Hearts saga.
Microsoft is adding 10 'Final Fantasy' games to Xbox Game Pass
Earlier today, Microsoft announced that it's adding more than 50 new games to Xbox Game Pass -- as well as giving three sweet freebies if you sign up for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. By any measure, that's a lot of games, but it's an especially exciting crop if you're a fan of Japanese role-playing series Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts.
'Kingdom Hearts: VR Experience' part two is adding the Olympus Coliseum
When the Kingdom Hearts: VR Experience dropped earlier this year, it was incomplete and missing some levels that might have put a damper on your nostalgia trip. Now, Disney and Square Enix are rolling out the experience's second part, which turns more worlds from the series into a virtual trip down memory lane, including Hercules' Olympus Coliseum. It's still free like the first part was, and it will be arriving on the PSVR on July 24th in the US and July 25th in Japan.
Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts music from Tokyo Philharmonic
The Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra recorded Symphonic Fantasies Tokyo, a live album of classic video game music, during its two days of sold-out shows in 2012. The performance includes orchestral renditions of music from Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross – and the full album is now available worldwide on iTunes, courtesy of X5 Music Group. Kingdom Hearts composer Yoko Shimomura says of the new album, "Symphonic Fantasies Tokyo is a wonderful experience – I cannot imagine a higher appreciation of my work." Hear "Fantasy 1: Kingdom Hearts," the only track released in full to the wide and wild internet, below. It's a fairly spectacular feast for the ears and heart.
Stick a pin in your Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD Remix pre-order
Customers who pre-order Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix will automatically be upgraded to the Limited Edition, Square Enix announced today via the PlayStation Blog. Along with updated versions of Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix, Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep Final Mix and Kingdom Hearts: Re: Coded, those who score a copy of the Limited Edition will also receive a nifty pin featuring Sora and Mickey. Now, a pin may not seem like a big fuss, but this is an official, collectible Disney pin - and thus, it is part of the pin trading tradition that officially kicked off in 1999. Disney pin trading is serious business to those with a passion for it, as some pins have reached prices upward of $1,000 on the secondhand market. So you take care of that pin, young man/lady! It just might be worth something someday. [Image: Square Enix]
Disney stars highlight new Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix screens
It's redundant to mention that the latest batch of screenshots from Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix are highlighted by their various Disney guest stars, but without the characters spawned by the House of Mouse this would be just another moon-eyed Japanese roleplaying epic, so we'll take it. In this particular batch, we see Cinderella, Ariel, the neon-lit characters from Tron, and, of course, Mickey, Goofy and Donald, among others. Though Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix is an enhanced reissue of Kingdom Hearts 2 and Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, the inherently cartoonish Disney style loses nothing in the jump to the higher-definition aesthetics of the PlayStation 3. The inevitable Kingdom Hearts 3 will likely make Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD Remix pale in comparison, but these images suggest that fans won't be bothered by jagged polygons or blurry textures during this adventure. No solid release date has yet been established for Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix, but Square Enix hopes to release the PlayStation 3 exclusive compilation at some point during 2014. [Image: Square Enix, Disney]
Square Enix polling Kingdom Hearts fans about series past, future
Kingdom Hearts 3 will conclude the decade-long battle of Sora and his friends, but it won't mark the end of the series. Future plans include the eventual release of Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix, but a recent post from Square Enix on the series' Facebook page suggests new games beyond the HD remakes and the numerical sequel. The survey polls fans on their preferred gaming platforms and their general thoughts on the series, including preferred pre-order incentives and their favorite overall game. Fans can chip in their thoughts until March 14, when the survey will presumably "die" before revealing its second, third and fourth final forms. If you'd prefer to see Disney worlds that have yet to be featured in the series or to retain Donald as your sidekick mage in all future games, now's your chance to be heard by Square Enix. [Image: Square Enix]
Gallery: The Tokyo Game Show 2013 Square Enix/Play Arts Booth
An annual staple of the Tokyo Game Show's shopping area, this year's Square Enix/Play Arts booth spared no expense in showcasing the future of its incredibly cute and/or highly detailed lines of action figures and statues. Now, we don't really have room for this sort of stuff in our tiny, hopeless apartments, but we'd be lying if we said we haven't already priced out Ikea display cases for some of this loot. But for the folks out there with ample shelf space and a proclivity for placing plastic personnel on pedestals, take note: You want some Metal Gear? You want some tiny little adorable Theaterhythm dudes? You want a hyper-future robotic samurai Batman? Our gallery has you covered, yo.
Deja Review: Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix
This is a Deja Review: A quick, unscored look at the new features and relative agelessness of a remade, revived or re-released game. More than a decade before Disney Infinity hatched its brilliant scheme to squeeze all of the House of Mouse's properties under one roof, Square Enix took a try in its own inimitable fashion. The result was Kingdom Hearts – a bizarre marriage of Disney magic and Square's Final Fantasy characters, with a liberal dose of director Tetsuya Nomura's new designs thrown in for good measure. The series has gained fans at the intersections of both properties, and a healthy base of players who truly care about the trials of protagonist Sora and his associated Keyblade wielders. I enjoyed the first Kingdom Hearts, which had an elegant simplicity that felt like a fairy tale who's-who as reinterpreted by Japanese fantasy tropes. While the fusion of third-person action and RPG mechanics was hit-or-miss, it worked well enough to carry me through the game and several of its sequels. I'll confess, though, that as the series has worn on, my interest has waned. If any criticism has dogged Kingdom Hearts most justifiably, it's that its internal myth-building has grown too complex and impenetrable for the casual fan. As the long wait for Kingdom Hearts 3 continues, Square Enix must have decided it's a good time for us all to take a step back and get our (Donald) ducks in a row. Hence, Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix: a compilation of the three early stories in the KH chronology, detailing just about everything you need to know before the seemingly inevitable Kingdom Hearts 2 compilation paves the way for a proper sequel.
Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD Remix trailer has flashbacks
This trailer for the PS3-exclusive Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD Remix reflects on the series' history. That might be wise, given it's one of the most difficult storylines to sort out in all of gaming. The pack contains KH 1 Final Mix, KH Re:Chain of Memories and a non-playable movie of KH 358/2 Days.
Kingdom Hearts 3 to conclude decade-long battle, series will continue
Sora and friends have accumulated enemies in numerical entries and spinoffs to the Kingdom Hearts series for the past decade. Kingdom Hearts 3 will be their first original console outing since 2005, but it won't end of the franchise, a L.A. Times interview with Series Director Tetsuya Nomura reveals. "In Kingdom Hearts 3, the battles that the characters have been fighting for the past 10 years will come to a conclusion," Nomura said. "But the series will continue. Only the particular enemy they have been fighting for the past 10 years will come to an end." Nomura said that while everything is still open to change, his team is currently using Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance's combat as a guide for Kingdom Hearts 3. When asked, Nomura did not elaborate on whether Pixar or Star Wars characters have a chance of making it in the game. Kingdom Hearts 3 will release on the Xbox One and PS4 at an unspecified date.
Kingdom Hearts 3 announced, coming to the PlayStation 4
Sony announced Kingdom Hearts 3 at its E3 press conference as the latest sequel in the long-running Square Enix/Disney series. The company showed off a short trailer, which traced the history of the Kingdom Hearts series, and then revealed some gameplay footage from the title. The game will arrive on the PlayStation 4, but no date for release was given yet.
The troubled history of Kingdom Hearts reflects Square Enix's own
In his weekly column, writer Bob Mackey will alternate between two of his passions: the Japanese RPG genre and classic games. This Tuesday brought the announcement of Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD Remix's American release date, and with it, feelings of ambivalence from people like me who once thought the strange pairing of Square and Disney would do more than tread water for a decade. I worked at a mall GameStop when the first installment launched in the fall of 2002, and even though I'd outgrown Disney (and had begun to outgrow Square), Kingdom Hearts felt like the first true RPG of the PS2 era, outclassing the at-the-time-recent Final Fantasy X, which relied on the same pre-rendered – albeit prettier – backgrounds that evoked the previous console generation's limitations. Regardless of how you felt about the characters on display, turning away from our in-store TV during the Kingdom Hearts demo reel proved nearly impossible; Square's technical wizards worked overtime to ensure that an army of 2D Disney characters would look and move perfectly in real-time 3D – and they still do nearly 11 years later. For fans of Japanese RPGs and classic animation, the tag-team of Square and Disney felt like some impossible dream that somehow came true, despite the odds against it. After leaving the Capcom legacy behind in the mid-90s, the existence of Kingdom Hearts seemed like a second chance for Disney to make their games more than just cheap tie-ins sold on marketing alone.%Gallery-179789%
