We cannot be more grateful that a title does not age a single year, that it seems that it could have gone perfectly in today’s market. Getting to that point of excellence is really complicated and few people have the necessary formula to make it happen.
A clear example of this is Kingdom Hearts, the work of Squaresoft at that time, and which to this day still looks really good. Almost 20 years have passed since that distant 2002, but thanks to a video of the user Mirza Beig on Twitter, we have been able to take a look at some of the tricks that the title used to look like this.
#KingdomHearts. The 2002 PS2 game that PRETENDED to have real-time lighting and almost got away with it because it’s made PERFECTLY. Some inspiration here for #IndieDev and #GameDev (especially mobile).
Specifically the effects for the light that the team led by Tetsuya Nomura designed. We can see how Sora modifies the intensity of his lighting depending on the area where he is; if you are closer to a street lamp, it will be brighter, while if you go into a dark scene, it will appear darker.
This feature, which also affects teammates like Donald and Goofy, simulates a dynamic lighting feint, when it really isn’t. A situation in which another result can be seen is every time we use Electro magic, as the stage will “turn off”, while the characters on screen and the rays produced will remain illuminated.
On the other hand, the shadows are not in real time either. They are actually projections that are configured according to Sora’s distance from the ground. This variable will determine their opacity and resolution.
Thanks to JayGameweb’s book on the creation of Kingdom Hearts, we can know that these details respond more to an artistic choice, rather than a clever solution to a technical problem. This is because the animated Disney characters got a better feeling during the game in this way.
Several news regarding the franchise have arrived in recent days. Today we have learned that Kingdom Hearts Union X Dark Road will close its servers, while the saga will reach the full PC platform for the first time.
Also Read | Kingdom Hearts 3 releasing via epicenter
