Late Night Consoling

Karen Sympathy's Late Night Impressions!!

Kingdom Hearts Demo Day @ Sony Metreon

I just got home (well not really; it ended about 6 hrs ago; just got home nonetheless) from Squaresoft's Kingdom Hearts Demo Day at the Sony Metreon and what can I say?

The game? I still want it. Squaresoft. Disney. This game is going to be huge-- blah, blah, blah-- <cut and paste miscellenous website hands-on preview/impressions here> blah, blah, blah blah.

The Demo Day?

You'd think I'd be bitter for waiting 2+ hours in line to play a game for ten (10) minutes!! I'm not. Maybe because I cheated, and got on 3 different stations at 3 different times, for a grand total of 30 minutes of Kingdom Hearts loving. Not too shabby, considering I'd never demo a game for more than say... 5 minutes at an EB kiosk or something?

But yes, ten. ONE. ZERO. I totally cringed and gulped when I first found out. I didn't know until I asked one of the Playstation Store peoples just as we were about to enter. Anyway, basically every station there had the game running and ppl would come in at about a dozen at a time, lining up behind any station of their choice (read: shortest line). Every 10 minutes, the current player would be told to get up and let the next person play. The games were then reset, and they'd get to play another 10. Repeat. I believe we were demoing the final version. In Final Fantasy fashion, at the title screen you had the choice of either starting a new game or load game. For demoing purposes we were told to load game from the memory card. From the load game screen, there are 11 saves, each of which represented 11 different locals that are found in the game. I managed to jot down the 11. They are (as written teeny-tinyly inside a game wrapper, so apologies for typos/mistakes):


1. Seaside Shack
2. Aladdin's House
3. Evil Playroom - Halloween Land
4. Coliseum*
5. Ship (Peter Pan)**
6. Camp (Tarzan)
7. Monstro Mouth (Pinocchio)
8. Green Room (New World)
9. 100 Acre Wood (Winnie the Pooh)
10. Tranquil Grotto - Atlantica (Little Mermaid)
11. Rabbit's Hole (Alice in Wonderland)***

* I played this
** This.
*** And this.

So, yeah, back to Demo Day. 2+ hour line. 10 minute game time (for those who didn't cheat). Kinda teh suck if you ask me. But I guess it's fair, considering how many attendees were out there and how small that place really is.

There were probably 300-400+ in attendance, all lined up-- starting at where one of the Metreon's main exits, all up along the side of the Playstation store on 4th street, swung around the main entrance and continued on the Mission St. side of the Metreon.

The best of these attendees has got to be the complete party from Final Fantasy X. Yes, cosplayers dressed as Yuna, Rikku, Lulu, Auron, Tidus, Wakka, and most hilarious of all, KIMAHRI, complete with BROKEN HORN RONSO KIMAHRI FULL HEAD MASK!! He's like supposed to be almost twice as tall as them, but he wasn't-- in fact the person cosplaying him was like shorter the person who cosplayed Auron, even with his BROKEN HORN RONSO KIMAHRI FULL HEAD MASK!! He took of this mask once he got inside though. :[ There was even the "you cried" boy in the purple hood. Ugh, I wish I had a camera w/me!!! This FFX cosplay party = IMPRESSIVE!! See it for yourself at gamers.com here, since they were there to cover the story (pic number 4 after clicking Latest Shots or 4th pic under All Shots:

http://gamers.com/news/1224006/

Besides gamers.com, there were other press ppl there also, like EGM (I think one of their guys was the DJ), some people from some G4, GZ, G-something network, I don't know, a news camera crew with ppl w/microphones and a couple of WB nobodys from 7th Heaven and Angel, AND.... NO Utada Hikaru. :[ Speaking of cameras... still or vid... they weren't allowed inside, so yeah, no PICS DIVX or whatever. I also got a lousy Squaresoft keychain, a 2-sided Kingdom Hearts poster, and this leaflet:

http://ksympathy.tripod.com/cgi-bin/kh_leaflet.jpg

...

Err, uhm... and.. yeah!! :[

I give up, I'm sleepy.

Oh, and the game was good, too.

Goodnight my beloved LNC,
k.sympathy

(~__~),.-(zzZZz)