[Warnings: long text, spoilers from the whole series, please note English is not my first language]
So the trailer for the last game of Kang Gao has been released. I am a long-time Kingdom Hearts fan, and if there's one thing we do in the KH fandom, is analyzing over and over new trailers. And since this one has caught me eyes from a long series of reasons, here I am to analyse all over the trailer, trying to find something important.
I will go by timestamp if you want to follow me more accurately. Be sure to lower the video's speed because some sequences last a few frames; there is a passage that I was forced to go on 0.25x to see what was going on!
00:00-00:11: It begins with one of the last moments of To The Moon, not sure if there is a specific reason or not, followed by a presentation. Then the words "comes a heartwarming story of" appear.
00:12-00:14: The trailer suddendly glitching with static; the words are replaced with "comes..." . Likely suggesting that something is "comes", or maybe that the phrase was replaced with something that is not a heartwarming story. Another static glitch generally drops the video.
I want to point out that the "energetic" part of the trailers, with all the screens from the games, starts after that static.
00:17: We see the protagonists, who are clearly a fantasy version of Eva, Neil, Robert and Roxanne. Neil has the "Saint Seiya-like" armour of Finding Paradise, and Roxanne is a magical levitating cat. They are playing a real-life version of a whack-a-mole game - that is clearly a reference to To The Moon.
I want to pinpoint how the graphics here are on a next level. We are no longer in RPG Maker visuals; this is a full-fledged high-quality pixel art style!
00:19: The party is surfing on the sea (Eva is surfing on Neil!!). That is a reference to The Beach Episode.
00:22: The four protagonists are skiing. This time is nothing we've seen before in the series.
00:24: Okay, here there is a LOT to say, because we see what is the screen of a boss fight. In order:
- In the lower-left corner we see four icons: a sword, a couple of four-spiked stars, two arms in an arm wrestling match, and a book. While the first two probably are physical and magic attacks, I cannot think of the other two. Maybe there is a distinction between attacking with a weapon and attacking with bare hands? And what about the book? It is strange to have a lore option or maybe even a save/load option on a battle screen.
- At the bottom of the screen, we see the images of the four protagonists. They all have 100 health points, and in the supposedly mana points, although Eva has only half of them remaining. Curiously, the four mana point bars are different. Neil has a regular one, Robert is divided into six parts, Roxanne has a lot of bullets, and Eva a lot of carrots.
I want to point out that while Eva has a sillier armour respect to the other three: she is wearing a giant garden slipper as a hat, his weapon is a rake, and his magic is, as I said, represented with carrots. I didn't immediately realise why this, but then I saw what it is referring to: Eva's desire to have a garden after quitting her job. I am not sure if there is also something referencing Roxanne being a levitating cat (no, I don't think that she is a furry).
3) The trailer shows Robert make a couple of insanely high damage (999999, we are at the levels of Expedition 33!) to a boss that seemed to fight in a couple with another boss. I tried to figure out what they are supposed to represent.
On the right, a seemingly female figure with an 1800/first 1900 rose-purple dress, that has as a weapon a giant music note. THEORY: it looks like a representation of Sofia Reeds, the wife of Colin Reeds from Finding Paradise; the pattern colour of the vest is similar, and there is a clear reference to the music
On the left, a male figure with a face that seems like the dog of Undertale, the head caged in a pillory and some screens around it. THEORY: a representation of the machinery of Sigmund to connect with patients' memories. Or it could be a reference to Colin Reeds, pairing with the supposed representation of Sofia, but I cannot see no direct references in the figure.
00:26: Okay, now FOUR scenes have just some frames; I had to put the trailer on 0.25 x to see them
- Another screen fight, this time against a couple of spiked platypus - if you remove the spikes, it is a reference to To The Moon. Eva - which again has only half health and half mana while the other are full - launches a magic attack that is a sort of tacos with bunny ears. I am not sure if it is a reference to something; I swear it is familiar, but I cannot connect where.
- Another screen fight against a couple of monstrous cellos - this time it is a reference to Colin Reeds from Finding Paradise. Eva, who again is halved in health and mana, has launched another magic, but it is not clear what it is; we see only puffs of smoke.
- We see Eva and Neil in their usual robes on a restaurant terrace, with a view of the twilight on the sea, the two of them alone with a lot of suitcases near them. Probably they are in the hotel of the Beach Episode.
- Okay, this one really lasts a couple of frames! We are in a hospital, and we see what the supposed younger version of Eva and Neil (Eva has the ponytail haircut). Neil is on the hospital bed, probably due to his malady, with Eva on his side.
00:27-00:28: We have come back to the fantasy scenario; this time seems like a scripted sequence. We see a giant rat (no idea what the reference is) in an armour that is approached by a wagon dragged manually by Neil, with Eva on top of it. The scene is interrupted when the wagon is facing the rat.
00:32-00:40: There is a moving picture of the party that is approaching a tower, with a strange cascade of light from the top, and it has a sort of black hole on the top. At 00:38, there is another glitch coinciding with thunder, revealing what looks like a headless four-winged figure. THEORY: First, I was thinking about Fanya, because her final form in Finding Paradise has four wings, but this figure seemes to much different from that. Maybe a glitched/corrupted version of the Impostor Factory simulation's Fanya?
00:43: Another boss fight screen, and Eva again has life and mana halved, launching a rocket cob as a magic attack. There are two bosses. On the right, a male figure with a hammer and a handheld sander. THEORY: it could be a representation of Johnny Wyles from To The Moon (they are representing him working on the house near the lighthouse).
On the left, there is a female figure that has the body of a siren, a crowned head and on the back has a massive representation of moon phases, with the new moon on the top in a special spot. I have no idea what it should be representing; I thought about River since she is paired with the supposed representation of Johnny, but I cannot see why she should be represented in this way.
00:45-00:47: We see the party entering a battle with another boss; this time Eva is full on life and mana. It seems the final boss, since they are on a tower, supposedly the one seen before the trailer. The boss is a female figure, with the body made of some kind of plants with roots that are on some earth at the centre of the tower, which has a huge hole. I cannot see any reference to someone; we see only that the battle begins with her targeting Neil with a magic attack.
00:50-00:53: Although it is separated, I think it is the direct continuation of the previous scenes. The boss makes an attack that summons some shards from the moon itself.
1:03: Here we can see a clear and full title screen. We see the party on the left, and we can see that Robert fights with bare hands while Roxanne has a giant machine gun - hence the bullets, I suppose. On the right, we see a long bridge to an island with giant spikes and, in the centre, the tower, which seems more like a giant distorted plant with a building on top of it.
THEORY: Can be a lighthouse, considering also the light? A reference to To The Moon's lighthouse?
We also see the giant figure of what is like the last boss we have seen, that holds a crescent moon in her hand.
1:06-1:08: We see a light that progressively enlightens the party, and after that another static glitch like the one at 00:14
And as the first static started the "energetic" part of the trailer, the second one stopped it
1:12-1:24: Okay, now there is a lot to say
- We see Eva in her bed, with the light of the sun entering from the window. Clearly it is the same light as on 1:06-1:08.
- At 1:16 we see that in her hand there is a sort of device with three buttons, labelled "Rec", "SN01" and "SN02". I sincerely have no idea what they are supposed to do. Eva is constantly clicking on the "SN01" button.
- A message arrived, and from 1:21 we can see a lot of information. First of all, there are a lot of ones! They are the 11:11 of 1st November, and it is a Tuesday. That is a reference to the original release date of To The Moon, which was on the 1st November of 2011, which was a Tuesday. Fun fact, this also means that the scene on the trailer is happening in one of the following years: 2033, 2039, 2044, 2050, 2061, 2067, 2072, 2078, 2089 or 2095!
- There is a message from an unsaved contact, asking her, "Are you going to finish the game, Eva?" THEORY: Probably is the digitalised version of Neil that somehow was able to communicate with the phone.
1:27-1:30: Another static glitch, followed by the title of the game, followed by another static glitch that partially changes the title in "The Last Hour of To The Moon". THEORY: This will be the last game of the "To the Moon series"
GENERAL THEORY ON THE TRAILER: What are we gonna play?
I think that we will play an RPG that, in-lore, was created by Neil. This justifies the party and the enemies that are references to both To The Moon and Finding Paradise (I haven't spotted a reference to Impostor Factory). What we see in the last moment of the trailer is Eva still coping with Neil's death, playing what is supposedly another gift for her, maybe an evolution from the "To the Moon" videogame that we play in Sigmund Minisode 1.
Probably "SN01" is a way to repeat the game; maybe it is a save state of something like that. You see, okay, Kan Gao games are short, but I don't think that the game will last just an hour as the trailer tries to convince us. I think that we indeed play the last hour of an RPG, but we will loop it again and again, likely with variations among the loops, because we are playing as Eva, who probably doesn't finish because finishing the game probably will vanish the last digital trace of Neil.
This is why I think this is the finale of the To the Moon series: alongside Eva, we will do a sort of recapitulation of all the events of the series, helping her cope with Neil's death, and the finale will be her finally being able to finish the game, detaching from Neil's machine and going with her life.