Kingdom Hearts III
"Kingdom Hearts III" was released worldwide in January 2019. Upon release, the game was met with generally positive reviews from critics.
Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance
The game was created by the same development team that worked on "Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep", then part of Square Enix's 1st Production Department. Since it contained members who worked for "The World Ends with You", the group decided to use characters from said game in replacement of "Final Fantasy" characters. The decision to make a "Kingdom Hearts" game for the Nintendo 3DS was due to the positive impression the Square Enix staff had when viewing the console's quality. The console inspired Nomura to make the Dive Mode function where the character moves to different worlds without the use of a vehicle, while the Flowmotion was thought prior to deciding which console use. The game's title was used to reference its various themes, with "Dream" referencing the storyline, "Drop" for the gameplay style, and "Distance" referring to the main characters' interaction, and, while unintentionally, the system's autostereoscopic 3D effect. Although Tetsuya Nomura admitted the English used was not grammatically correct, the team still decided to use it based on the way it sounded. Development was notably shorter than the ones from previous "Kingdom Hearts" games. However, co-director Tai Yasue emphasized how the finished product resembled "Kingdom Hearts II" and "Birth by Sleep" but improved.