Kingdom Hearts III
"Kingdom Hearts III" was released for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on January 25, 2019 in Japan and other Asian countries, and is scheduled to be released on January 29, 2019 elsewhere. In July 2017, at D23, it was announced that the game would release in 2018. Almost a year later, at an additional performance of the "Kingdom Hearts" Orchestra World Tour in Los Angeles, the game's North American release date was revealed to be January 29, 2019. Nomura spoke to moving the game's release date outside of 2018, stating the development team had been told the original release date they had considered was not "good timing in the year" to release the game, especially considering "differences in holiday lengths and how stores behave in different regions". In addition, Square Enix requested the game be released as simultaneously as possibly between Japan and the rest of the world, and not wanting to move up the release at the expense of development, resulted in the January 2019 date being chosen. The game's epilogue is planned to be added to the game on January 26 for Japan and January 30 elsewhere, while the secret film content is planned to be added worldwide on January 31, 2019. This was done in order to help prevent them from leaking beforehand, since Nomura called them "the biggest spoilers" in the game.
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
"Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep" has received positive reviews from gaming reviewers. The game's average score is of 82 out of 100 on Metacritic, becoming the third highest ranking "Kingdom Hearts" game behind "Kingdom Hearts" and "Kingdom Hearts II". The game has been highly praised by Japanese gaming magazine, "Famitsu", whose four reviewers gave scores of 10/9/9/9, for a total of 37/40, the third-highest rated game in the "Kingdom Hearts" series behind "Dream Drop Distance" and "Kingdom Hearts II". They praised the game's graphics and music, calling them "superb", as well as praising the wide variety of customization available to the players due to the three unique playable characters. It also praised the design of boss battles, calling them "lively and exciting". English websites have also given praise to the game with GameZone calling it "amazing title that every KH fan must play", finding it the best portable game from the series. RPGamer praised the "evolution" from the gameplay ever since the series' start. "" ("PSM") agreed calling the fighting system "one of the deepest, most rewarding" ones from the PSP. IGN called its battle system "unique", labeling it as the best one from all the series and having a campaign story. 1UP praised the differences between the protagonists' fighting styles with "PSN" comparing them with different classes of RPG characters. A common complaint has been the game's loading times, which tended to be very long depending on the PlayStation Portable's memory. Reviewers also called the game's worlds "hollow due to the lack of interaction, and also criticized the game's camera which sometimes made fights confusing. Visuals were also well received for being similar to the ones from PlayStation 2's games with praise on the design of the worlds, although a lack of details was also noted.