Wow, a release window on the horizon seems too good to be true, haha. Welp, any news is good news, I guess.

No doubt most of the new worlds will feature films post Pixar-acquistion. The graphics engine was practically made to imitate such vibrancy and detail. Kind of "meh" on the Hercules world being featured yet again, but hoping it will be featured less (like Atlantica in KH2 sans singing) or maybe even as a tutorial world in the sense that Ursula had in 3DDD. However, I do believe any live-action films they choose will be able to fit even better within the aesthetic that KH3 is already going for.

Priorities my friend. Priorities

This is really fantastic news, I can't wait to see what kind of news they will have for us in the coming months. The fact they have decided on a release window is beyond exciting.

More like unnecessary nit-picking. There isn't going to be complete 1:1 realism in your magical square enix/disney game. This really shouldn't come as a shock, especially because (as displayed in previous games) you wield the Keyblade and have magical powers, whereas my keys only open my house.

Still looks like a fun game tho, glad everything is going smoothly.

Yeah, it's a release date and not a release window. That being said, it's still an estimate until it is finalised and released, so it's likely subject to change.

I liked them in Birth By Sleep, back then it was a neat new way to streamline things like selecting magic and items and give the player an easy way to do some of the more advanced moves, plus the command styles are great for changing up combat and the later ones are just plain awesome. By Re:coded the command styles are gone and all that streamlining starts to feel more like it's restricting things than opening them up. Now instead of being able to use seven spells at any given time in KH1 or six at any time in 2, plus whatever strong or weak physical moves you have equipped, summons, and a number of items, you get 8 slots to put all of these things into with no summons, so you have to give up some of your options in combat no matter what. Take into account that all of the best skills take up two slots each and you end up with four possible options in combat and that's if you don't feel like you need to reserve a slot for healing.

Then there's the fact that both of the previous numbered entries have used the command menu system and up until Re:Coded all the spin off games had their own combat systems and so the command deck immediately started to feel stale after being put into more than one. By 3D all of the problems with the system stood out more than it's advantages and I was disappointed that they didn't have something new.

Where did you hear that reaction commands weren't going to be in this one? I haven't seen them even mentioned anywhere.

It's not nit-picking if I'm curious as to how it works. Never said it needed realism, all I want to know is how they fire. So far the only thing the keyblade has shot is a beam of light that's as thick as a string of yarn. Excuse me if I want to know how those guns work now

I'm not sure which interview specifically (on my phone rn) but Reaction Commands have been removed according to Nomura. He felt QTEs take control away from the player and the team wanted to avoid that.

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Well, that just makes one wonder...what significance can Twilight Town possibly have in this game? All lose ends there have pretty much been tied up there.

That actually kind of sucks if you ask me. Reaction commands are what made KH2's attacks more interesting in the boss fights. Does that mean the fights are going to be like the first KH and we just attack over and over? It says actions will be based on "good or favorable timing", but what does that even mean?

Maybe that's where they'll get Roxas back? (If he does which I'm assuming he will). That's where he appeared the first time if I remember correctly. Either that or they just used a world they already had for the initial trailer :)

Yeah I think that too, they really made them epic I thought. Plus on normal enemies your quick reactions would earn you a cool and powerful attack, I always thought that was great and an extra added bonus. I don't understand what people don't like about them?

Well, I actually have some kind of a theory about that that I talked about briefly on the podcast. When they showed Twilight Town in the trailer, a lot of people have noticed the entrance to the mansion is blocked from the mansion side rather then the town's side.

Spoiler

During the first scene of the trailer we're shown that place where Xehanort and Eraqus are having their chat, it doesn't really look anything like the mansion we see in KH2, but it has been some years since that happened. In KH2 there was a part of the mansion that we didn't get to explore, and I'm thinking if what we saw in the trailer isn't Land of Departure, it's Twilight Town and they're in that room in mansion. I don't really know why exactly I thought this but as silly as it sounds it was the curtains in that room that did it for me lol.

Other then that, there are also more developed theories that the Unicornis Forteller from ChiX, or even all of the Foretellers reside in Twilight Town for a number of different reasons

Spoiler

The pillars at the front of the mansion have the unicorns on them, there are unicorn statues inside the mansion, and if you look out the window there is a giant unicorn fountain. Above the door to the mansion on the inside there are the unicorns again. The entrance to get down to the hidden computer room is also a unicorn. There are also what looks like to be these Wolf head things in the mansion as well, and with the broken pieces that are in the middle of the mansion, there seems to be some kind of a snake headish item, but that might be stretching it. There's also a bear fountain on sunset hill.

I mean, Nomura could just really like unicorns, but I think there's a lot more to the mansion that we haven't discovered yet

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Fair enough, well maybe it was just me then :) But really for the numbered games I would use at most the shortcut spells and some of the equip-able attacks, but especially in the first one I found it kind of annoying that if you had a few of those equipped you had to wait for the one you wanted to show up or accidentally press another attack command, or else just unequip everything else if you wanted to be able to consistently use the correct one when you wanted to. And it was a rarity to use any of the non shortcut spells, though granted cos I never really practised at it, it just seemed slow and fiddly during the heat of battle to open a second menu and scroll down to the spell I wanted, while not being able to do normal attacks.
Item use for me was pretty much reserved for before I got cure and to give to the flowers in Wonderland.
So it is a big bonus for me that you can pick and choose and swap exactly which commands to have right there and not have to faff around with the surplus ones.

Also for summons I maybe used Tinker Bell during the Maleficent battle and Stitch during the Hades paradox cup but that was it. Though I do like having the summon cameo characters, I can understand that they are fun even though I never found them particularly useful. I preferred D links mostly because they had extra abilities and used a separate gauge (I'd always choose going into drive form over summon).
You're right about the command styles, that was one of the big plusses for me and without them in re:coded I can see your point about it being restrictive.
To be honest I think a bit of it is that I just loved the whole melding thing, trying to make something new and wondering what the outcome would be :)
I guess I should just enjoy whatever new things come with the KH3 combat and still enjoy the BBS combat just in it's original game. Woops sorry for the essay!

Sure it meant lots of button mashing more than usual, but again, I liked that it added something new to the fights. Plus, we don't know if the gun thing is supposed to be just a part of his normal combo with the keyblades, or it's something different during fighting, like "push to square button to use the guns during certain points of the combo" or something like that. Now if you have a quote from an interview that proves me wrong, I will concede, but from all that I personally know, I'm just guessing the combat will just be combo after combo. The Reaction Commands was a nice interruption to me from the repetitive combos over and over

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It's kind of disappointing reaction commands wont make a return for KH3.Personally I thought they provided interesting opportunities during the KH2 Boss battle as they were cool to watch and in some cases proved quite helpful to the overall strategy for battles, but sometimes they could cause be a problem during the battle if you didn't get the timing right which resulted in Sora being defeated. Although I think the Keyblade transformation will be good in place of the reaction commands, as the Keyblade transformation seem like a reaction command that you have more control over

To each their own, but they didn't really provide that much depth. A gigantic button appears on the screen, you push it, good stuff happens. I mean in terms of a short break from the action of a battle, it could be useful in that regard, however other than that they never really did anything for me. I either want to be in an intense battle, or sit back and enjoy a cutscene.