Fans of the unique JRPG love child between Final Fantasy and Disney should not have to wait much longer; Kingdom Hearts 3D has been confirmed for release on March 31st, 2012 in Japan. The (hopefully) last handheld spinoff before the highly-anticipated Kingdom Hearts III, Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance will be headed late March to the Nintendo 3DS.

The confirmed worlds for the game thus far are TRON: Legacy, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Three Musketeers, and Pinocchio. For those who have grown tired of seeing the same scenery over and over, (Agrabah, anyone?) this is a welcome change, one the series has needed for a while.

Additionally, this will also be the very first Kingdom Hearts game to feature characters that aren’t from either Disney or Final Fantasy-related universes; one of Square Enix’s most innovative and incredibly underrated franchises, The World Ends With You, will also be referenced in the game. Featuring Neku, Beat, Rhyme, Shiki, and Joshua, the five main characters from TWEWY, Sora will see plenty of new and familiar faces in his latest adventure on the 3DS as he battles his way through his Mark of Mastery exams.

Longtime fans of the franchise, however, should not feel left out; the game has plenty of the old cast to look forward to. Axel, “Terranort,” Vanitas, Maleficent, Pete, Xion, and Roxas have also been officially confirmed, much to many fans’ delight. Series creator, Tetsuya Nomura has also lent a hand in redesigning Sora and Riku’s new clothes in this spinoff, claiming that the new threads were supposed to suggest this game was more integral to the main storyline than the other Kingdom Hearts spin-offs, cleanly bridging the gap between Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts III.

Whether or not this is true, we’ll have to wait until at least spring 2012 at the earliest to find out.

Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance, will be soaring to the Nintendo 3DS this coming March.