Next stop Kingdom Hearts 3

We have it all now, the whole Kingdom Hearts story leading up to the next main console installment. Everything has been ported in one way or another to current gen consoles after yesterday's release of Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX and last month's Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue.

I for one think we are more than ready for Kingdom Hearts 3 now. As a huge fan of the series I have started a mass campaign to play through every single game before the expected release of Kingdom Hearts 3 later this year (hopefully).

The thing is we are ready, I cannot emphasise this enough. Square Enix need to know this now. We are so ready. They’ve remastered, rereleased and improved, then they scrubbed up, polished and repackaged all of the games. They’ve given western audiences the complete versions of the original games, they even basically threw the tech demo for KH3 our way in the form of Birth by Sleep – A Fragmentary Passage. To top it all off they basically released a fully animated movie for a little back-story.

ENOUGH!

Square Enix I love you guys, trust me I do. The thing is that you’re really pushing me here. In total we have 7 main games. 7 isn’t a bad number, not when you take into account your track record. *cough* Final Fantasy *cough* No but seriously now, you have released every full game at least twice now, 6 of them have been released 3 times. Maybe it’s time to release KH3?

I don’t mean this to be a rant, I really don’t. In my opinion Square is one of the best publishers and developers in the world. Their track record is fairly good and that’s spanning several genres. Kingdom Hearts is for me what Call of Duty is for those snotty 13 year olds on PSN, absolute brilliance, endlessly entertaining, art.

So come on Square, hopefully this reflects how the rest of the community feels as well, I know my friends feel the same. We know Kingdom Hearts 3 will be wonderful, the magnum opus of the entire series. Just please, please, release it. This year would be nice. Thanks.

Why Bryan Lee O'Malley is one of the most underrated cartoonists of all time

New aesthetic, same genius.

Who is Bryan Lee O'Malley? Most people I've met genuinely have no clue who he is. Honestly that's a little bit sad if you ask me.


Drop the name Scott Pilgrim and their expression changes: "I love that film" they say. I reel backwards in disgust, I'd spit out venom if I could!


I agree, the film is good but by no means will I accept anyone who doesn't even know that it's an adaptation. Bryan Lee O'Malley was the cartoonist behind the 6 volumes used to make up the entire Scott Pilgrim saga. 6 amazing books were condensed down into one film... ONE!

I always carry the classics.

So, even with his work condensed and some being completely oblivious to his genius I still believe that O'Malley is one of the greatest cartoonists on the planet. Far-be-it for me to decide who gets classed as a genius, but for me he is up there with Alan Moore and Stan Lee.


Lets go through this, what has Bryan Lee O'Malley written? He started out with Lost at Sea, a beautiful little book that is as insightful as it is entertaining. Then there's the Scott Pilgrim series, 6 books, seven evil exes, already world renowned. Next comes Seconds, a different book, longer and familiar in theme to other cult classics and even 1985's Back to the Future. O'Malley's most recent work is as the writer for the monthly comic Snotgirl, which he also contributes art to. Snotgirl is new, fresh and very amusing, especially with its use of beautifully crafted satirical realism.

A beautiful hardcover for a beautiful book.

So why don't people recognise O'Malley as much as he truly deserves? Well if you ask me I think it's down to both Hollywood and early success. This isn't to say that O'Malley's later works haven't been received well, truly they have, but he seems to be immortalised as the creator of Scott Pilgrim. It seems to be a double-edged sword in a way, creator of a perfect example of a graphic novel but also trapped by it.

But what does this all mean? Well to me it means two things. The first is that Bryan Lee O'Malley is a genius, celebrated widely for his work, a work that will be remembered for being immortalised in film. But then it means something a little more sad, O'Malley's work may never top the success of Scott Pilgrim in the mainstream media. And that really is sad, but what is worse is the fear that he may be forgotten as an author and an artist completely, leaving only his work behind.


Imagine the Mona Lisa without DaVinci. It loses some of the magic doesn't it?

Deluxe Effect

For years now publishers have been churning out multiple editions of each game, each one with its own features that they want to sell to you for something like £999. From statues to soundtracks, DLC to dongles, publishers want you to shell out extra cash in whatever way they can. But is it worth it?

Let's take Watch Dogs 2. It launched with 4 main physical options, the base game, the Gold Edition, the Amazon exclusive Steel Book and the San Francisco Edition.

I got myself the San Francisco Edition.

So, what can you get in these editions? Well the base game is quite obvious, it contains the bare bones, sometimes individual retailers will throw in an in-game cosmetic to sweeten the deal but other than that you pay the least and in essence get the least.

Steel Books are a strange one and they aren't a recent occurrence either. You can often pay quite a bit extra for a pretty box, maybe a little bit of exclusive DLC, but as a rule you can't expect much more than tin box.

Uncharted's roughed up Steel Book is one of my favourites.

 Gold editions normally include the season pass, often with a little discount off buying them separately, simple as that.

Then we get onto the special editions, Ubisoft's bread and butter. These editions include, statues, soundtracks, art-books, you name it and it's probably in a special edition. Oh, but do remember you could easily buy three base games for the same amount most of the time. Considering games now can start off at £60 it can get pretty ridiculous if you ask me.

Watch Dogs' Marcus does look pretty slick though.

I’m not one to completely snuff the idea of a deluxe edition however, my problem comes in when the price is so high. Games such as Mass Effect: Andromeda launching later this month are prime examples of where reason goes completely out of the window by offering a £140 bundle of the deluxe edition of the game and a remote-control Nomad ND1, a vehicle used in the game.

Doesn’t all this seem a little ridiculous? £140 for a game you can already pre-order for less than £45? Publishers are slapping a deluxe label on their games and offering them to consumers at ridiculous prices. Then again it is pretty hard to not want to pour out the contents of my wallet when Square Enix offer anything with Kingdom Hearts written on it…

Maybe they're just a little too tempting