Kotaku: One of the best parts about doing a weekly mixtape is hearing suggestions from readers on which composer to cover next (PS: keep 'em coming). Out of all the suggestions, nobody has been more requested than Yoko Shimomura. So this week on the Kotaku Mix Tape, we celebrate one of gaming's most moving composers.
Even though she cut her teeth on Street Fighter II and other Capcom titles, Yoko Shimomura is probably best known for her work with SquareEnix. Need somebody to write a piano ballad that'll make you cry your eyes out? Yoko's got your back, and the themes from Xenoblade and Kingdom Hearts are proof of that.
Here are the games that will be leaving the Extra and Premium tiers of the PS Plus subscription service in the month of May, 2024.
Absolver Downfall
Abzu
Adrift
Ashen
Elex
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VIII Remastered
Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy X | X-2
Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age
Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition
How To Survive 2
I Am Dead
Jotun
Last Stop
Minit
Moster Jam Steel Titans 2
My Friend Pedro
Observation
Sundered Eldritch Edition
The Artful Escape
The Messenger
This Is The Police
This Is The Police 2
World of Final Fantasy
I don't recall Sony forcing you to subscribe like nobody forced you to go to Blockbuster to rent games instead of buying them.
Pay-per-view was almost cheaper than the cost of gas and rental fee from Blockbuster. Blockbuster doesn’t exist today. Are you being sarcastic?
Gary Green said: With my fondness for (most) Final Fantasy games and my side goal of finishing off games in my collection with loose ends, a return to Final Fantasy XV seemed inevitable. It also serves as my third Final Fantasy platinum trophy after VII and VIII, a reasonable substitute since Final Fantasy IX is nigh on impossible to master.
Trying to break into Kingdom Hearts is a nightmare.
My advice; play the games in release order. Alot of people say story chronological order but that can be really confusing. Trust me.
I think a problem that SE is going to run into (or already has run into) with this series is that a lot of the people still following it were kids / teens when they played the first one, and are now much older. I know I'm finding it increasingly hard to tolerate the childishness of some of the stuff in these games, and I'm sure there are plenty of original players who have since just stopped following the series for this reason. I can't count the number of times I was playing KH3 and just feeling like, "What the f*** am I doing?"
SE can keep the series PG-13, and try to get a new audience of kids, but how do they intend to get kids into a series with a story that has been expanding since 2002, and over the course of like a dozen games? Especially when there are already loads of newer franchises out there that have already pretty much cornered the kids / teens market.
Honestly, I think they should either end the series once and for all, or take it in a more mature direction, and ditch the Disney stuff (I know, unpopular opinion, probably). It is a series that hasn't really grown with its audience, I feel. Alternatively, they could try to steer it in a more all-ages Studio Ghibli direction, sort of like Final Fantasy.
I felt this way with KH3 as well, ended up dropping it around half way through. I won't even bother with KH4.
Same here. Kingdom Hearts 3’s dialog was way to childish for me and I only played just to finish the story and wrap up the near 15 year wait.
I doubt I would be buying any other games unless they go in a more mature (all-ages) direction as OP said.
you gotta remember Disney has to sign off on everything they do with KH. Disney is super protective of their IP,
Either way I don't disagree with you on a lot of this stuff becoming more and more of an issue. But it's okay that fans grow out of things like this. But if they do decide to keep it more for the young audience then they will have to solve the problem that the article mentions.
Yeah, I just don't know what they could do to get all the kids invested in it at this stage. The only thing I can think of is a total reboot, but that would be an enormous project, and they clearly have no intention of doing it. I mean, the series has just embarked upon another "saga", which, if it's anything like the last "saga", will take another 2 decades to complete, will consist of 6+ games, and will convolute the overall narrative even further (if that's even possible). It seems to me that, if this is SE's plan, and if they want people to still care about the series in 5-6 years time, then their only real option is to try to appeal more to a non-adolescent audience. Otherwise, the kids won't care because they won't have a clue what's going on, and the adults won't care because the series is too childish.
Having said all that, the Yozora stuff, and the footage we've seen from KH4, does seem to MAYBE indicate that the series is going in the direction I'm talking about, but it's too early to say for sure. KH4 might look completely different the next time we see it, knowing SE.
Kingdom hearts 3 is horrible ..that's why you felt that way. It's the worst in the series by far.
My issue is with the decline of the writing which has been an issue for Square-Enix games across the board. KH3 should have gone out with a bang and felt very satisfying, but instead it was like a wet tissue and left feeling like I missed a lot of content. Having said that, KH3 was probably the last KH game I'll purchase.
Im playing 3 as my first one and I got that same feeling. Enjoying the variety and combat but im not into the story...too confusing.
Indeed. If you wanna give it a try, just go with 1-3. The other games are unfortunately needed to know but you can just youtube all the cutscenes by order of release of each game.
She's a smashing composer and is definitely worthy of praise.
I'll be lynched for this, but I think she's seriously overrated. She's good and obviously talented, but when I hear people raving about her, I wonder, have you even heard Masashi Hamauzu? Or Junya Nakano? Or Hitoshi Sakimoto? Or Naoshi Mizuta?
Not that I don't like her stuff, but I'm just saying.
First time i heard her music was in the original Parasite Eve. Once you hear that opening theme 'Primal Eyes' i knew the OST was gonna be epic & it certainly was.
She has expanded her game library with Kingdom Hearts,Xenoblade & others. I didn't know she did the majority of the music in Street Fighter 2, now we know why the music in that game was so good.
I look forward to her work in Final Fantasy vs.13 if that game will ever come out.
@ Gespenst
There is no doubt the composers you named are all extremely gifted musicians but it is really refreshing to see that Yoko Shimomura a women can stand her own in a for the most part a male dominated field.