If I Die Before January 29th I’m Going to be Furious

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Folks, we’re in the heart of E3. There’s crazy video game news everywhere you look. Awesome looking trailers for countless awesome looking games. But there’s only one thing so far that’s really tickled my fancy- Kingdom Hearts 3 has an official release date. January 29th, 2019.

For the uninformed, the Kingdom Hearts franchise is a beloved mashup between Disney and Final Fantasy. It’s overwrought, self-serious, and could easy be crushed under the weight of it’s impossible storyline. It’s also one of the greatest franchises in gaming history. The first Kingdom Hearts changed my life forever. PS2 was the first system I ever owned, and Kingdom Hearts came out a couple months after I first got it. I rented it from Blockbuster (yes, I’m old enough to have rented video games from Blockbuster), then extended the rental when I hadn’t beaten it in time. My parents were optimistic enough to put a limit on how long I could play games every day to try and stem my inevitable descent into addiction, but that was broken right around the time you fight Cerberus in the Coliseum the first time. In many ways, Kingdom Hearts is responsible for my love of video games and my dependency of them to supply me with worlds that were better than boring old real life. My first Kingdom Hearts playthrough remains one of my five favorite experiences ever playing a video game (in no particular order- KH, Witcher 3, Persona 5, Danganronpa 2 (yes, I’m a nerd), Pokemon Silver) (Yu-Gi-Oh: Duelists of the Roses is still inexplicably one of my favorite games ever, but it got better the more times I played it when I was old enough to fully grasp the strategies involved. I’m talking first playthroughs only). Then Kingdom Hearts 2 blew my mind again. And then it was 12 years later and they finally announced the third main installment. Yes, there were plenty of side games. Yes, I played all of them, despite having to read the entire wiki every time I started a new game because the plot was so dense. Some of them were even good. Some were even great. But KH 1 and 2 are in a whole different class. To say I’ve been waiting half my life for this game to come out probably wouldn’t be an understatement.

And honestly, I don’t think it’d be possible for me to be disappointed in it. Even if it doesn’t reach the highs of 1 and 2, just the fact that it’s finally being released is good enough for me. There was a time where I legitimately didn’t think it would ever come out. That the series would just kind of die. But now that it’s actually on the horizon I know it’ll be good. For starters, it’d better be good if they spent so long making it. But I know they wouldn’t spend so long on a game just to release something subpar or incomplete. It’s going to be a good game, mostly because the worlds look sweet and that’s half the battle right there.

So, I hereby declare that I refuse to die before playing Kingdom Hearts 3. I’ll look both ways before crossing the street, stay out of unseemly parts of town, make sure not to make eye contact with anyone on the subway, and break the rules of the Continental. If you’re someone with a grudge against me and are planning on having me killed, just know that ghost will haunt you for the rest of your life if you whack me before this game comes out. I won’t travel, I won’t get abducted by human traffickers, and, under no circumstances, will I try skydiving. Nothing’s going to stop me from playing Kingdom Hearts 3. Not even the haters.