Check all three out below.

Back on May 3rd, 2004, I created Kingdom Hearts Ultimania out of a geeky passion to track and know everything I could about the then-in-progress development of Kingdom Hearts 2

I also wanted to create the best and most useful collection of Kingdom Hearts 2 information on the web. Every single image, video and storyline snippet.

As the site grew, other people volunteered to get involved, translating and sourcing images, videos and news direct from Japan before anyone else. We even once got hold of leaked content from Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories resulting in an overnight cease & desist from Square Enix themselves.

After a few years of hard work, it paid off and we became the biggest source of Kingdom Hearts information on the Internet. The site received 80,000 unique visitors on the release date of Kingdom Hearts 2 – a number that astounds me to even today.

We also created a popular forum with thousands of passionate members who discussed, argued and theorised every element of each game – who is BHK? What did that secret movie mean?

Some members ended up making real-life connections, joining the moderation team and landing jobs in the video game industry.

What amazes me now is this was all way before Wikipedia, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook or Twitch either existed or were useful resources for Kingdom Hearts fans. Today, that’s where the community largely is – on those platforms.

I’m really proud of what the site became, how it’s progressed and the impact it made on my life alongside so many others.

But, it’s time to put the website on ‘silent mode’ – over the past few years (or really, ever since the release of Birth By Sleep), activity on the site has quietened down – moved on to other platforms or fantastic sites like KH13.com or credit it to it, KHInsider (the longest standing site in our community now) – and the effort put into growing the site has paused also.

Churro has kept us going, thanks to his incredible talent and contribution to the Kingdom Hearts community, but I’m officially ‘letting him off the hook’ so he can use his time elsewhere – better spent on more active communities.

Today, I run a digital marketing agency, called Kaizen, where we help businesses gain traffic to their website through techniques like SEO and Content Marketing.

To be clear, we will no longer be actively posting news and archive the forums.

I’d like to give my heartfelt thanks to Churro, Damien, Kupo Mog, Jiminy Cricket, SakuChan, Tidy, Declan, Yukeh, Tinny, Ryusuke, Mors, Ruby, Gaia, Shay, Ursula102, Aquarius, DDDB and the countless other contributors, moderators and members throughout the years – we would of never created the amazing community we did if it wasn’t for our wonderful teamwork.

Churro will be continuing to manage the Twitter and Facebook channels for now posting up the latest Kingdom Hearts developments and news.

Thank you, and goodbye.

Pete Campbell – @petecampbell
Founder of Kingdom Hearts Ultimania

Flood Unversed Plush

Hidemi Matsuzuka, general manager of Square Enix’s Merchandise Division, has unveiled the long awaited Flood Unversed plush from Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep.

Hidemi was in charge of creating four plushes based off of Tetsuya Nomura sketches and we have seen the release of the Shadow Heartless, Dusk Nobody, and the Meow Wow Dream Eater plush so far with no news regarding the Flood Unversed until today.

You can enjoy the full image below:

No pricing or release dates have been released but we will keep you updated when they do.

Source: Hidemi Matsuzuka’s Twitter

KINGDOM HEARTS χ

About a month ago Kingdom Hearts series director Tetsuya Nomura mentioned in an interview with Famitsu that a smartphone expansion of the Kingdom Hearts series will be announced soon.

According to Esuteru and Gamestalk, Kingdom Hearts Unchained Key has been announced for iOS and Android systems for Japan that will be released later on in 2015, which is Kingdom Hearts X[chi] revamped for smartphones with new plot elements.

htmk73 and aibo have tweeted out some information and thanks to Goldpanner, have translated the tweet:

‘Kingdom Hearts Unchained Key’ for iOS/Android, scheduled to release 2015, free to play (with in-app purchasable items), the gameplay of ‘Kingdom Hearts Key’ remade for smartphones, setup for the plot has also been prepared for this newest title in the series. (@htmk73)

It’s currently unknown for a release outside of Japan but we’ll keep you updated when any information comes out!

Source: Esuteru, Gamestalk, htmk73, aibo_ac7

Square Enix E3 2015 Conference

Square Enix announced today that they will hold their own special E3 2015 conference in Downtown Los Angeles.

On Tuesday, June 16, 2015 at 9am PST, Square Enix will live stream their own conference revealing what they have in store down the road. Square Enix’s E3 2015 line up has yet to be revealed but could this mean that we’ll have a new Kingdom Hearts III trailer to watch or could they reveal the Kingdom Hearts smartphone expansion Tetsuya Nomura teased about? Only time would tell.

You can catch the live stream on their Youtube channel or their Twitch channel.

E3 2015 is held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from June 16 – 18, 2015.

Japan D23 Expo 2015

Kingdom Hearts series director Tetsuya Nomura was interviewed in the latest Famitsu and talked briefly about Kingdom Hearts III and the D23 Expo Japan.

Nomura says that development was going smoothly and that they have interesting things to announce at the Kingdom Hearts fan event. He even mentions a smartphone specific development announcement for the series as well!

Thanks to Gematsu for translation of the D23 Expo bit:

“We have some interesting things planned. There will be Kingdom Hearts III news, and various things, I think. Kingdom Hearts III development is going smoothly, but there will also be new announcements connected to it. As one of those new announcements, I think we should be able to announce a smartphone-specific development for the series in short order.”

Source: Gematsu, Hachima Kikou.

Kingdom Hearts Union Podcast

The seventy-seventh episode of Kingdom Hearts Union podcast has arrived and this time we finally have a a bit of news to talk about as well as a discussion of the release of the Final Fantasy XV: Episode Duscae demo.

As for news, first we bring up the special Kingdom Hearts fan event that’s happening on November 3rd, a few days before Japan’s Disney D23 event and speculate what could happen and what could be shown at the event. Next is we talk about the Kingdom Hearts Tribute Album releasing in Japan and what to expect and finally we wish several Kingdom Hearts anniversaries.

We head into our Off Topic Hearts discussion and that is the Final Fantasy XV: Episode Duscae demo that was released two weeks ago. We discuss, the battle system, characters, open world gameplay, English localization and what can KH3 learn from FFXV.

Finally we head into the questions segment and we thank Giovanni Rivera, Geoffrey Denson, and Eifel65 for submitting their questions for this episode. If you want to submit a question for us to answer, simply email khuquestions@gmail.com.

We end the show with a Hikari and Dearly Beloved crossover song that you don’t want to miss.

Be sure to check out our Patreon page for ways to support us and our podcast endeavors! You can do so by clicking here.

Japan D23 Expo 2015

Disney D23 has announced a Kingdom Hearts fan event at Japan’s D23 Expo 2015.

While no guests or information was given at this time, more will be provided on Disney’s website in April. Japan’s D23 Expo will run from November 6-8, 2015 with the Kingdom Hearts fan event on November 3, 2015.

An excerpt regarding the fan event:

To celebrate D23 Expo 2015 Japan, a Kingdom Hearts fan event will be held on November 3 at Cinema Ikspiari, Tokyo Disney Resort. Program information for the event, Kingdom Hearts―The Theater (working title), will be posted on the official Disney website starting in late April.

Two years ago at the first Japan D23 Expo, is where we had the first look at the Attraction Flow system, what could we be seeing this time?

Source: D23 Official Site

Kingdom Hearts Union Podcast

The seventy-sixth episode of Kingdom Hearts Union Podcast has arrived and we have a show for you.

Since no Kingdom Hearts news has surfaced so far, we are bringing back the Kingdom Hearts University segment at the request of Patreon supporter, William Helmrich, and we are going to discuss Kingdom Hearts X[chi] and Kingdom Hearts III.

From there we answer the three questions chosen from our Questions Segment email which you can submit your questions for us to answer at KHUQestions@gmail.com. Following the questions we have a lovely Simple and Clean cover that you will enjoy!

If you haven’t already be sure to check us out on Patreon. With your support, we can go back to doing a new show every other week. Even if you only have a dollar to spare, every little bit helps.

>Subscribe to the Kingdom Hearts Union on iTunes
>Direct Link: Kingdom Hearts Union: Episode 76
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Kingdom Hearts Union Podcast

The seventy-fifth episode of Kingdom Hearts Union podcast has arrived and we change the mood for this one.

Join Branden and myself as we brocast it up for a Valentine’s theme episode. We start out with recapping the recent news starting with the Kingdom Hearts tribute album and the open positions for the development of Kingdom Hearts III.

We then get into the “We <3 Kingdom Hearts” segment and we discuss the romance in the Kingdom Hearts games. Does romance fit into the games? Is there room for it? And how should it be handled? Tune in to find out what we have to say!

We then get into our Questions segment where we discuss the possible reason to why Square Enix and Disney haven’t released the Kingdom Hearts series as a digital download and if Kingdom Hearts X[chi] will come out in North America.

We end the episode with a fantastic cover of Simple and Clean by YouTuber NateWantsToBattle! Thank you so much for listening and don’t forget if you like our show you can contribute to our Patreon account and get cool benefits such as getting your name shouted out or pick a topic of discussion of your choice! For more information on this, you can listen to the show or check out our official Patreon page here.