03.06.2007 EGM'S APRIL JOKE: MUSHROOM KINGDOM HEARTS
Every year I look forward to Electronic Gaming Monthly's April Fool's joke. My favorite one was when they told their magazine readers that they could unlock Sonic and Tails if you devoted enough time to Super Smash Bros. Melee. It was the easiest photoshop job possible, yet everyone believed them for a month and wasted dozens of hours trying to open the extra character slots on the play select screen.
This year they've come up with something more creative, and even put in the time to make convincing 3D images to sell their lie. I'd love to play a Mushroom Kingdom Hearts game, but it's pretty obvious that this is their cruel joke in the April issue of EGM.
The image on the left is the page scan, and I typed up the blurry text from the article:
The original idea for Kingdom Hearts was absolutely absurd. A role-playing game featuring characters from Final Fantasy and Disney? Hell, that's as asinine as combining Legos and Star Wars (wait - scratch that). But the only dumb ones were the ones who doubted it'd work - the unlikely combination actually toucheda helluva lot of gamers' hearts. So now that we're used to seeing Mickey Mouse and the rest of his cartoon clowns muck it up with the Final Fantasy crew, we thought we'd seen the last of these oddball pairings. Boy, were we wrong - publisher Square Enix is ramping up a radically new Kingdom Hearts sequel . . . only this game isn't set in under the sea, but rather under the pipes of the Mushroom Kingdom. We don't know much of the juicy deets right now (all Square Enix gave us was this early logo) but we were able to squeeze out some helpful intel.
First off, Mushroom Kingdom Hearts is a We [spelled wrong on purpose] exclusive and will feature a cast of over 41 Nintendo characters. Not only that, but it will also feature Sora, Mickey, and a flock of other favorites from the first two Kingdom Hearts. And as far as the story goes, all we know is Mario will get his hands (and feet) dirty hammering down the Heartless . . . oh, and apparently some princess needs saving, too.
So, basically a glorified Paper Mario game. Since this isn't just some hidden feature fib that EGM made up, it'd be cool if Square Enix actually gave this idea some thought, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Or maybe this preview is actually real and EGM still has us tricked - Halo 3 actually doesn't exist at all. That would be quite the bloody Sunday come April 1st. Thanks to Pedro for the scans.
