Next year will be the year of Kingdom Hearts (though really every year is)
Tetsuya Nomura, aka my childhood hero for helping develop Final Fantasy X, is the director of Kingdom Hearts 2.8, Kingdom Hearts III, and the Final Fantasy VII Remake, and is a character designer for World of Final Fantasy. In an interview with Dengeki Online, he discussed these exciting upcoming titles, and also spoke about World of Final Fantasy.
Originally, World of Final Fantasy was meant to be a simulation game. They created the chibi and normal-sized characters, but the simulation game had a lot of issues, so they used those characters in the smartphone game Pictlogica Final Fantasy while World of Final Fantasy became its own thing.
Regarding Kingdom Hearts 2.8, which Nomura confirmed will support 4K on PlayStation Pro, he revealed that the box art contains secrets if aligned with the covers of Kingdom Hearts 1.5 and 2.5. Before I write what they are, see if you can spot them:
First of all, Sora’s position goes from sitting, to standing, to walking. Along with that, if you compare the skies you will see that on 1.5 it is “sunset becoming night,” 2.5 is “middle of the night,” and 2.8 is “night breaking into dawn.” Nomura states this is “a message regarding the final chapter, Kingdom Hearts III.” I’m pretty sure everyone was expecting a happy ending.
This ex post facto narration of the series’ tones reminds me how Hideo Kojima twisted the Metal Gear Solid initial trilogy into a “Gene, Meme, Scene” thing. Oh, I got your memes alright.
As most would figure, Nomura confirmed that Kingdom Hearts III will be an evolved form of the gameplay present in Kingdom Hearts 0.2: A Fragmentary Passage, though it’ll be much improved. For one, he mentions how Aqua’s keyblade can’t be changed while Sora’s can in KHIII. Even if they didn’t make improvements, 0.2 plays so fantastically it would be enough, but if they want to go even further I’m not here to hold anyone back!
He says we’ll hear more about Kingdom Hearts III after the release of Kingdom Hearts 2.8 (secret ending, anyone?), adding that 2017 is the 15th anniversary of Kingdom Hearts so we can expect to hear a lot of news. Which means I’ll have to get new giant earplugs that have been battered from the barrage of Final Fantasy XV news and gameplay footage. I played the first two KH games not knowing anything about them. Going into a big game like KHIII without knowing what worlds and major gameplay elements will be featured just isn’t possible in this day and age, I suppose.
Finally, with regard to the Final Fantasy VII Remake, Nomura explains that despite fan demand, the old ATB system is out, action combat is in. He wishes they would have shown what the battle system looks like in the past so fans wouldn’t be confused, so he plans to do that in the next update. Working on titles such as Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy XV would lead most to believe the system would resemble the system in those, but we’ll just have to wait to see for ourselves.
He closed by mentioning that like Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy VII will also have an anniversary in 2017: its 20th. For it Nomura would like to do something special, but he hasn’t decided quite yet.
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