Sadly very little was answered for Kingdom Hearts (KH) fans at Tokyo Game Show (TGS) this year. Still, a few days before, Square-Enix dropped a new trailer for the Kingdom Hearts III Re Mind DLC. The DLC episode will be released this winter. It’s been eight months since the game’s release and now it’s time to head back to the worlds of light and darkness with Sora! We’ll be doing a quick breakdown of the new trailer and then bringing up a few questions that have been asked among fans ever since finishing the game.
KH3 ENDING SPOILERS ALERT!
The new trailer recaps several scenes that chronologically have already occurred in-game during the final level at the Keyblade Graveyard. Heavy focus is given to the main characters of Birth by Sleep, as well as 358 /2 Days. During which, Aqua and Ventus are shown fighting a Xehanort-possessed Terra, and Axel/Lea fighting alongside Roxas and Xion against berserk-Saïx/Isa. Given that the previous trailer released back in June 2019 showcased gameplay footage with player combat with Riku, Roxas, and Aqua from the same level it is expected that any Keyblade Graveyard related content will be a retelling of events from other characters’ perspectives. How much development of story and characters it’ll provide is unclear.
A peek at expected new content chronologically post-KH3 events involving Naminé and Xigbar/Braig, and mentions of Kairi’s lost heart from Chirithy (the gray cat-like creature Sora meets in The Final World) is also shown. For combat footage, Sora is seen in recolored clothes with a color scheme that resembles his Ultimate Form (now titled Dark Form). While he isn’t shown wielding multiple keyblades, there are a number of possible answers as to why that is. Color schemes of his clothes could be altered depending on the world he’s in, this is a new form change that was mentioned in early press releases, or the trailer is only using test footage.
Why the test footage theory? Formchange was introduced in KH3, in which keyblades are able to alter form into a variety of weapons to initiate scale tipping levels of magic such as Highwind from the Wheel of Fate keyblade, or Blizzard Blade from the Crystal Snow keyblade. However, for the Dark Form, Sora is shown wielding only the normal Oathkeeper with no other unique alterations or mechanics beyond his clothes being recolored.
Now that we’ve covered the basics of the trailer it’s time to recap what left us with so many burning questions for this new episode to begin with.
Naminé
With Naminé making a brief appearance alongside Sora in the depths of heart we will hopefully get the long-awaited answer of if Naminé’s heart is finally freed from Kairi’s. This obviously begs a lot of questions, seeing as how Kairi’s heart was shattered by Xehanort during the final level, and Sora thus journeyed off to find her once again. There is also the question of if the Naminé we saw during the KH3 end credits was the real Naminé or just a replica crafted from her data-collected memories of the virtual Twilight Town. Given that the entire first half of the game was spent discussing their options of freeing all characters trapped within Sora and Kairi, at this point it would be criminal for Kingdom Hearts III Re Mind to invalidate so much buildup by making Naminé’s real-world existence completely artificial.
Xion
Xion’s very existence during the final level is something else that needs explaining. As mentioned early on in the game, Sora was said to have three hearts inside him. Roxas is already known to the cast, and Ventus is known to the players. But the third? Xion’s. How do we know this? In Secret Report 9, written by Zexion/Ienzo, it is stated that two of the hearts trapped within Sora’s have been present for nearly equal amounts of time, and the third for far longer. Ventus’s heart took refuge in Sora when he was only a child, resting there for over a decade. Xion rejoined into Roxas at the end of 358 / 2 Days, and then Roxas rejoined into Sora in Kingdom Hearts II, thus putting them both within Sora’s heart at the same time. Altogether, that makes three hearts, matching up with Ienzo’s research.
This is an issue as Xion appears at the final battle alongside Organization XIII, fighting for Darkness. It’s never truly explained how or why she was able to appear when her heart should have still been locked inside Sora’s with Roxas’s. The only possible explanation is whether or not Xehanort used his time travel capabilities. A data-memory crafted replica is out of the question in this case, as Xion’s rejoining with Roxas caused everyone’s memory of her to vanish — thus leaving no memories to create a replica from. Even if time travel is the answer it still begs the question of the real Xion’s heart that would still be locked inside Sora.
Roxas
Roxas’s heart is confirmed right away to still be trapped in Sora’s. Ansem the Wise, Mickey, and Zexion/Ienzo spend almost the entire first half of the game theorizing heart extraction and replica reproduction. What they actually end up doing isn’t ever shown. Yet, Roxas shows up for the final fight, escaping Sora’s heart just in time to save Lea and Xion from Xemnas, as well as to help defeat Isa. During which, Roxas says he used a replica doll to take shape. Said doll was supposedly provided from not only Ansem and King Mickey, but also from Xemnas’s own allies, Roxas pointing his keyblade in Saïx’s direction when he says this.
Furthermore, from Izeno’s entries in the Secret Reports, “all their hearts require to be awakened is that ‘spark’ — people they cared for and who cared for them, who can show them the way home.” Roxas mentions something similar to this, saying he heard Axel and Xion calling for him before he appeared to help them in their fight. While everything known makes sense in theory, the actual heart extraction isn’t ever explained, and makes even less sense as Ienzo is in a completely different world at the moment the game shows Roxas being freed from Sora, nor is a replica doll spotted on the battlefield. With part of the new DLC to be played from Roxas’s perspective, this is one question that will hopefully be answered.
There is also the question of why this process worked right away for Roxas, but not Xion?
Demyx, Luxord, Marluxia, and Larxene
Unfortunately, the new trailer makes no mention of Luxord, who was shown in the June 2019 trailer. Fans will have to wait for further updates pertaining to him, and what larger role he plays alongside Xigbar. Also, what of the card he gave Sora right before he supposedly died in the final battle which he said would aid Sora in the future, and then never mentioned again?
It might not come up in Re Mind, but what of Demyx, Marluxia, and Larxene? Commonly forgotten is that only Organization XIII members I-VIII were Ansem the Wise’s original apprentices. Members IX-XII were scouted out and collected after they had all become Nobodies. All four were originally residents of Daybreak Town from the mobile game, Kingdom Hearts Unchained χ, which has been confirmed to be the sunken ruins of KH3’s final level, Scala Ad Caelum.
Established canon only leads to more questions, being that this would make all four of them several hundred, if not thousands of years old. Yet Demyx, Luxord, Marluxia, and Larxene aren’t fleshed out that much in the main series, or even in Unchained χ, as well as other Organization members. With Luxord already confirmed to be getting the spotlight in Kingdom Hearts III Re Mind, and implications in-game that the others had unfinished business, is there a chance the other three will get further exploration as well?
Xigbar/Braig/Luxu
As confirmed during the ending, Xigbar is still alive and is someone with a lot more history to him then what we’ve seen in his current and previous life as Braig, during Birth by Sleep. Given what is explained as the earliest known events in the Kingdom Hearts universe in Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover, it is confirmed that Xigbar is the present incarnation of Luxu, one of the original Foretellers and an apprentice to the Master of Masters. Luxu was tasked with taking his master’s Gazing Eye keyblade and seeing it passed down over the years from apprentice to apprentice, so that his master may watch the events that would come to pass over decades, if not centuries. Along with the keyblade, Luxu was given a secret black box, its contents still unknown even after the events of Kingdom Hearts III.
So, if he’s Luxu, then who is the Master of Masters? Are they even alive as a new incarnation? As it is clear that Xigbar is the new ringleader for the forces of Darkness, what exactly has he been planning that has taken centuries to finally put into motion? Not to mention the other Foretellers who showed up in the very last scene!
Maleficent
Where is she? What are her plans? Will she ever be relevant again? Why does she still tolerate dragging Pete around? Please, Square-Enix, decide what to do with her, or at least kill her off, again, for good. She isn’t Princess Aurora — she doesn’t deserve to be slept on like this.
Kingdom Hearts III Re Mind was originally announced at the first Kingdom Hearts Orchestra World of Tres in Tokyo this April. It is possible that a final update will be given at the tour’s final show, set to happen this November in Osaka.
Fans may say that Kingdom Heart’s plot is complicated, but it’s really not when you break it down. After all, the whole series starts off as Simple and Clean.
