Hey there Aproydtix, thanks for joining me today! Why don’t you introduce yourself and tell me a bit about yourself?
Hello! I’m a programmer who dabbles in game design, and a video game enthusiast as I assume most who mod are. I’m very much into JRPGs, Xenoblade in particular being my favourite, and Kingdom Hearts being high on the list as well.
First up, how did you get into gaming and modding?
I started playing Pokémon as a kid (Gen 1 and 2), and in middle school, I started modding Pokémon Ruby. While I modded that game a lot I never actually released anything, but it got me into game development as a hobby, and eventually as a job. I think video games have much to offer as both art and entertainment, and I thoroughly enjoy making them!
Kingdom Hearts was solely on consoles for a long, long time: Did you know you were going to mod the game once it came to PC? What made you decide to start modding?
I knew I was going to use mods on PC, but I was never planning on making any myself. While playing around with the few mods that existed in the beginning I got to see what was possible at the time, and they made me want to tackle fixing the much-talked-about floatiness and unresponsive movement of KH3.
Your most popular mods are Improved Movement and Olympus Coliseum - let’s talk about those! What made you want to change the movement within Kingdom Hearts 3?
Improved Movement was in the beginning just a simple asset edit. Logic mods hadn’t been figured out yet, but a modder named Accel had figured out some animation swapping, so I used that as a basis to fix a couple of things. It didn’t help much as it was back then, but I managed to make some minor breakthroughs this way.
Then, Accel and I figured out how to get animations working, so by shortening some specific ones I could fix some of the unresponsiveness. This along with someone figuring out how to put logic mods on animations became the basis for today’s version.
Was it a challenge to mod Kingdom Hearts 3 and 0.2 considering there is no official modding support? How did you approach the challenge of adjusting the game?
It definitely has been a challenge at times, but it has also been surprisingly easy at times as well. Since they were made in Unreal Engine there are several tools available already that can get you pretty far along, not to mention the UE Editor itself! Initially, I was reconstructing C++ header files to create dummy assets in the editor I could mod with, but Joseph and Narknon have been invaluable in getting these in since.
There has been a lot of trial and error involved. While the header files give me access to variables and functions, there’s no guarantee that these will work the way you want. I can for example set the current HP of an enemy in code, but not max HP. In many cases I’ve had to create intricate systems to get even the tiniest thing to work, such as tracking transforming enemies, as the game replaces the enemy entirely, breaking references.
You’ve also conquered the monumental task of bringing the Coliseum into KH3, what made you look to do this and did you encounter any challenges doing so?
After having done Improved Movement I was confident I could do more, finally having access to logic mods. I was sure I could do an arena mode pretty easily, and seeing as KH3 didn’t have a Coliseum, I thought I might as well do it myself. The earliest version was done within a month, with the Phil Cup, arena, and the main menu being prototyped.
The Coliseum has of course come a very long way since then, but what’s happened since is pretty public. It has grown in scope again and again, becoming notably bigger than I planned it to be.
There have been many many challenges to get here. Everything from making path-finding work, to lighting, music, specific enemies… There are countless things that have had to be fixed in one way or another. Like Xigbar for example, he would teleport away and never show up again. It took a while, but I found a fix for that.
The Coliseum mod also brings the fights from previous games into KH3 - did you make any changes to these or are they exactly as we experienced them originally?
They have been changed pretty substantially. The most obvious example is the enemy types that aren’t present in KH3. Rapid Thrusters don’t exist, so they had to be replaced with Vaporflies. One KH2 Cup didn’t even have a single matching enemy; I had to really stretch the imagination with some of these replacements.
In that mod, you can also create your own custom parties - who would be your dream Kingdom Hearts party?
I’d honestly just want to see more of the Sea Salt Trio. I really like all three characters a lot, and while KH3 in a sense finished their story, I’d like to see more of them. Be it a Days remake or another entry in the series.
Are you hopeful for Kingdom Hearts 4? Do you have any wishes for what’s to come in the future of the franchise?
It’s a bit too early for me to tell. It feels like a fresh start in a sense, and with Sora being in another reality, it seems likely to be rather disconnected from most of the worlds, characters, and events we all know and love. I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the story in the latter half of Union X, so hopefully, that will carry over to 4.
I can at least say that since it’s going to be in Unreal Engine 5, it will likely be fairly easy to mod, and if they just so happen to forget about the Coliseum again, I might sneak in another one.
As a fellow Kingdom Hearts fan, I’ve got to ask: Do you have a favourite keyblade and world from the entire franchise of Kingdom Hearts?
I must admit I’m still a big fan of Oblivion and Oathkeeper (and who can forget the wooden stick), but Chaos Ripper is definitely up there.
As for worlds, Halloween Town must be my favourite among the Disney ones even if Timeless River is a real standout, and I can never quite decide which I like the most between Traverse Town and Twilight Town.
Thanks so much for speaking with me Aproydtix, to wrap things up, are there any shoutouts you’d like to make?
Big shoutout to the OpenKH modding community on Discord! Without them, I wouldn’t have started modding KH3 in the first place, and I wouldn’t have gotten this far without them either!
Also a big thanks to all the people who have used and supported my mods!
Thank you to Aproydtix for chatting with me today: Have you got a favourite mod of theirs? Let us know! Also, as always, don’t forget to send SlugGirl a DM if there’s anyone from our community you’d love to see interviewed.
9 comments
my our hearts be our guiding key!
Never knew Kingdom hearts had an active modding community.