The Kingdom Hearts x Fortnite collaboration is upon us and Epic Games has revealed the trailer showcasing the event and I need whoever is responsible for creating this piece of absolute cinema to step forward and take a damn bow.
Just hearing the opening guitar notes of Hikaru Utada’s “Sanctuary” and I’m already bawling, forcibly transported to the time when I blocked out two days of a busy college freshman schedule just to play this game when it launched. The trailer is almost shot-for-shot a recreation of the first few moments in Kingdom Hearts 2‘s opening cutscene, hitting many of the same action and emotional beats. Sora hitting the ground at the same time as the musical sting, perfection.
The people who put this shit together fundamentally understood exactly what strings to tug to get me, and a whole bunch of other Kingdom Hearts enjoyers, to consider playing this amorphous glob of video game pop-culture references. “You can tell whoever edited this is a true Kingdom Hearts fan,” is currently the most upvoted comment under the trailer. If there was a Haley Joel Osment voiceover talking about “far off memories” and “scattered dreams” I would have folded and started making space on my PS5.
And the trailer didn’t cheapen its impact by showing typical Fortnite gunplay. The idea of Sora, Riku, and Kairi with guns is fundamentally wrong like it is with so many other Fortnite crossover characters. Having the trio wield their bespoke keyblades with Sora dancing about the sky executing combos I intimately remember maintains the illusion of, “Oh hey, remember that game you liked when you were younger? We’ve brought it back, but better,” instead of the more accurate description of, “We’re dismantling your memories and selling the back to you as a cheap facsimile.”
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