Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III in development

During the Sony E3 Keynote this year there was a brief segment where Square-Enix were allowed to strut their stuff. In this, it was finally confirmed that Final Fantasy Versus-XIII  had been re-branded as Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts 3 has finally popped out it's head.

That's all we basically know. The Final Fantasy XV footage looked to be pseudo in-game rendering with some CGI spliced in between. There was some magic sword wielding and gun shots galore but the game we have virtually only been able to see through pre-rendered scenes finally seems to be coming along quite nicely. 

I have recently had some sort of crisis in how Square-Enix has been handling the Final Fantasy IP. As games have been coming out they have felt less and less "Final Fantasy" and more Sci-Fi Fantasy with high end cut scenes and esoteric story lines that struggle to sprinkle in series icons and fanservice.

Final Fantasy XV seems to be teetering on this as well with it's mind-boggling combination of Modern Existence, Advanced Technology and High Fantasy. But if you didn't notice what that huge serpent thing was it was none other than Leviathan, a classic Summoned Creature from the series. I was glad to see such an impressive rendering of the series' legacy but felt conflicted as what seemed to be in-game footage looked like a hi-res version of Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus. 

It's too soon to actually form an opinion but I hope that Square-Enix gets its stuff together and not make another relative dud like Final Fantasy XIII. 

Finally there is Kingdom Hearts III, for the last 5 or so years there have been hopes that this game would in some form debut its existence at E3 but we were constantly fed spin off titles on non-console systems. The tidbit we were showed from a pre-rendered Kingdom Hearts III should be enough to satiate the hordes of fans that have been near demanding this game be made. Now we can rest knowing that the game is finally "in production" and knowing Square-Enix, it may be years before we even see more.