Welcome back to a bonus edition of Clickbait Boyfriend! I hear the confusion in the reader crowd. “Didn’t you just update a few days ago?” “Won’t it be another seventeen days or so before the next edition?” Yes, it’s true that Clickbait Boyfriend is typically a fortnightly-ish series, but today is a special day. In case you missed it, the latest Kingdom Hearts 3 trailer dropped today at E3. Not only did we get a long awaited release date of January 29th, 2019, but the Microsoft powers-that-be gifted us with a three minute glimpse into the game.
Since Clickbait Boyfriend specializes in providing hot takes and witty commentary on the series, I thought I’d get his reactions to the Kingdom Hearts 3 trailer. Here’s the report from Kingdom Hearts (relative) newbie land, courtesy of CBB himself.
“Is that still Haley Joel Osment?”
-on gigs no one expected would be this long-term
I mean, who signs on for a weird AF Disney/Final Fantasy crossover game and expects to still be voicing a teenager almost twenty years later? Sounds like he’s a pretty big fan though.
“Having a Wreck-It Ralph world is too meta.”
-on video games within video games
I asked Josh to expand upon this after we finished watching the trailer. My quotes are in italics:
“It is too meta though. Think about it. It’s a video game character from the actual world going into a video game ostensibly created in our actual world. Does Kingdom Hearts exist in Kingdom Hearts world?”
“It’s light.”
“No, I mean the video game. Kingdom Hearts in quotation marks. Something just feels fishy about it to me. How do these worlds work? Wreck-It Ralph is supposed to take place in the actual world, right? I mean, fake video game land, but in the actual world. Like, video games like Pac-Man exist in the actual world from the arcade.”
“It’s like Mulan, right? The Land of Dragons in Kingdom Hearts 2 looks like real China, but the Huns never invaded actual China.”
“I think you can make a much stronger case that–you know what, I don’t actually think that Wreck-It Ralph actually exists. Because I was about to say something that might have seemed, to the untrained ear, to suggest that.”
Clickbait Boyfriend can still distinguish the difference between reality and fictional characters, which means he has not yet played enough of these games.
“Oh no, this looks just as terrible as Kingdom Hearts 2.”
-on gummi travel
Clickbait Boyfriend has never liked the gummi ship, and the Kingdom Hearts 3 trailer is no exception to the rule.
“My bae, Utada Hikaru.”
-on soundtrack loves
A reminder that CBB once referred to “Simple and Clean” as “discount Destiny’s Child.” He’s since come around and even learned both of the theme songs on guitar!
“It’s become just Pixar.”
-on the death of traditional animation
CBB also had more thoughts on the shift from classic Disney to the digital worlds:
“It does feel weird that they’re leaning heavily into the Pixar and new-fangled Disney stuff, although maybe Tangled isn’t as new as I think it is. I mean, I definitely saw it in theaters with my high school girlfriend so it was at least five years ago.”
If Clickbait Boyfriend saw a movie before he was Clickbait Boyfriend, it must really have been ages ago. Get with the trends, old man, digital is in!
“Oh no no no.”
-on the return of Ansem plural
Looks like things are only going to get more confusing from here on out.
“Is that girl Riku???”
-on Aqua
Clickbait Boyfriend has not yet played Birth By Sleep. Isn’t his ignorance kind of cute?
“I’m a little disappointed that there are a lot of new worlds. It feels like it would be nice to revisit some of the new ones.”
-on the Kingdom Hearts 3 trailer as whole
As CBB said afterwards, it’s a balancing act. Hopefully we find out more at the Square Enix presentation!
But wait! It wouldn’t be Clickbait Boyfriend unless I asked. How does Josh feel about the fact that there’s no sign of Atlantica yet?
“I feel like half-assed rhythm games are kind of out of style. How disappointing would that be if you had all the capabilities of the PS4 and the Xbox One to make a rhythm game that consists of pressing one button to rejected songs from the Little Mermaid?”
That’s my guy. Tune in soon for the fight you’ve all been waiting for: Sora vs. Roxas…over and over and over again.