Summary
WithKingdom Hearts 4acting as a new cornerstone for the future of theKingdom Heartsseries, the upcoming title has a lot to prove for this new era of crossovers between Square Enix and Disney. So, asKingdom Heartsmoves forward beyond the Xehanort saga, the series should look towards its more difficult contemporaries and take a note from thelevel design ofElden Ringin the next main title.
While the structure of the series leading up toKingdom Hearts 4doesn’t exactly lend itself to an open-world style, the design of individual regions could still have a strong effect on the upcoming Disney worlds. More importantly than the open design of these regions and their many hidden treasures is the number of bosses and mini-bosses sprinkled throughout the Lands Between.
Kingdom Hearts 4 Needs an Elden Ring Level Boss Roster
Shared Strengths Between Kingdom Hearts and Soulslikes
Defining the Soulslike genre often starts and ends with difficulty, but there are a number of factors that go into the gameplay that can go several layers deeper than just being the “hard RPGs” and their imitators. Thebest Soulslike titles go beyond difficulty, by including movesets that require players to deliberately pick and choose when to attack without flashy action cancels, using dodge rolls and guards to avoid damage, while fighting larger-than-life bosses at the end of interconnected levels. In a lot of ways, this also describes the gameplay loop of theKingdom Heartsseries, complete with magic unlocking the hidden easy mode and DLC superbosses that take hours to finally beat for the first time.
Drawing From the Strengths of Elden Ring’s Open World
One of the key features that setsElden Ringapart from other Soulsborne games is the massive boss roster, with 165 different encounters spread across the Lands Between. While some of thesebosses throughoutElden Ringaren’t as strong as others due to overuse, the ability to stray off the beaten path and find at least a minor challenge and reward greatly enhances exploration. It is this emphasis on exploration thatKingdom Hearts 4could afford to borrow from other Soulslikes and the design philosophy of FromSoftware specifically.
The variousDisney worlds of theKingdom Heartsserieshave always boasted a number of hidden secrets and items to collect throughout each individual game. However, these have usually amounted to little more than a handful of extra potions or accessories, with something as impressive as a secret boss being a rare find saved for the end of the game. Placing smaller encounters against more brief challenges could be a better way to make use of the level design of the upcoming Disney worlds, especially if a number of them are optional and some of them hide the path to even more difficult bosses.
Secret Encounters Already Worked Once in Kingdom Hearts' Side Content
Interestingly, theKingdom Heartsseries already has a positive example of introducing a huge amount of optional content in the space where players fly around between the mainline worlds. TheGummi missions ofKingdom Hearts 3explored this concept of hiding secret encounters away from the main progression of the story, with unique bosses and rewards available throughout this section of the game. With encounters like Schwarzgeist and Omega Machina hidden behind unlocking powerful Gummi Ships and diving into outer space tornadoes, the new open space area has some of the best exploration inKingdom Hearts 3.
So, with so much optional content sprinkled throughout the Gummi missions finding success in the most recentKingdom Heartstitle, the next logical step is to equally expand on the Disney worlds themselves. Similarly, a lot of rewards inKingdom Hearts 3had already been hidden behind some of theKingdom Heartsseries' more unique puzzlesor Flowmotion interactions. Including bosses alongside those puzzles could help make exploration more interesting and make the rewards feel more earned.
