New Nomura Gameinformer interview. Discusses Disney Worlds, Quadratum, and Final Fantasy in KH4.

[Zettaflare]

Well that was certainly a interesting read. If worlds are being reduced I wonder which ones we'll see in KH4. Likewise I think most figured Quadratum was going to be a hub world. Time to watch Sora and Strelitzia get jobs. I want to see Sora deliver mail to a random pigeon in the city via a skskateboard.

And Strelitzia could open her own flower store. Which could be a neat reference to Aerith in FF7

 

[NoWay]

I’m here for some slice of life content

 

[PikaPal]

Time to watch Sora and Strelitzia get jobs. I want to see Sora deliver mail to a random pigeon in the city via a skateboard.

The perfect time to bring back "The Escapade."

 

[bambii (aka foreteller)]

I’m all for a fresh start, but re: limiting the role of the Days/BBS cast, I don’t really know how that sits alongside the fact that Nomura has already set up dangling plot threads for Ven, Aqua/Kairi, and Lea/Isa. I really hope these aren’t rushed and just shoehorned in. Or maybe he’s playing the long game with some of these, post-KH4.

 

[cakito123]

Day to day life?... I'm expecting a great prologue like in KHII where we have Roxas's 7 day routine

 

[Golden_Lion]

Nomura is so clueless when it comes to FF characters.

"Beloved" KH characters? Oh like Ienzo in KH3 who randomly starts helping Sora in Radiant Garden? Yes, he was very "beloved" indeed.

I can tell you for a fact that if they had swapped out Ienzo with the Restoration Committee and had Leon/Yuffie talking to Sora during the initial FaceTime scene, the fans would have been going nuts to see them again and would have had a way more impactful feeling instead of having Ienzo randomly explain who he was to Sora.

 

[the red monster]

Sounds to me even less disney worlds then KH3? i'll take it if it means no more 20 hours disney rush nonstop.
day to day life is gonna be like KH2 prologue assume.
about FF, i agree with nomura, KH no longer needs them. we have enough to deal with as it is, shoving FF characters just for the sake it of it is eh. make them secret bosses like sephiroth.

 

[Squood!]

Less worlds due to increasing graphical specs and stuff makes sense.

Regardless of artstyle, polygons get bigger, fidelity gets increased, so does resource cost. Especially if you aim to make bigger worlds.

They can make bigger worlds with a bunch of content, but at the cost of having to reduce the amount of worlds.

 

[the red monster]

the caribbean in KH3 was absolutely massive. if they aim to make every world in KH4 that size, it's completely understandable to have fewer of them. but the selection will need to be really good.

 

[Elysium]

I hope it is more of a sign that they will try to include them, but that we shouldn’t expect them to play a major role. If they’re bringing reaction commands back due to apparent fan demand, including FF characters should be a no brainer. But it does remind me of how he approached the same question when people were asking it for KH3.

It is a no brainer...that doesn't guarantee anything though. To me his statement was just him justifying his nonsense and irrational bitterness, wahwah.

I guess I can look forward to 5's gameplay being bearable at least since reaction commands will be gone again for that game "due to fan demand" as well. And then back for 6 and gone for 7. Wwho am I kidding, I won't be around 40 years from now when those games are out--not that they'll be worth it because the games will have dwindled down to two worlds per game at that stage. I can't believe they're already setting up less worlds here when 3 was already a steep drop in the world roster. And with three or more worlds that will be Star Wars, Marvel, PIXAR mess--we might get two worlds that are actual Disney content maybe?

I'd be more inclined to believe this if even half of the original KH characters actually were developed to a significant degree LMFAO.

Glad to know he essentially used FF characters as a stepping stone though! Oh well. If Nomura can make room among all these characters for "random Disney character moment", what's stopping the same for SE characters? At the end it's simply a choice and just like Nomura chooses to keep thinking people want more Sora and Riku, Kairi's an unimportant tag along, and etc etc, he'll keep choosing to phase out FF and SE characters because he thinks there's no room. LOL whatever.

Love how he says in response to the BBS and Days characters that there's not enough room for all their stories in IV, yaddayadda. Then on the FF characters question, he says there's not enough room for them because of the huge cast he created via BBS and Days (that he just said would not be a major feature in IV either)... Just what.

 

[HakaishinChampa]

Day to day life?... I'm expecting a great prologue like in KHII where we have Roxas's 7 day routine

With Sora keep going back to Quadratum, I'm hoping we get a weather cycle - Rain, Hail, Lightning, Heatwaves (maybe Sora, Strelitzia, Luxord and Yozora go to the beach)

Less worlds due to increasing graphical specs and stuff makes sense.

Regardless of artstyle, polygons get bigger, fidelity gets increased, so does resource cost. Especially if you aim to make bigger worlds.

They can make bigger worlds with a bunch of content, but at the cost of having to reduce the amount of worlds.

What if Second Visits return? I think that would make up for less Disney worlds. But at the same time - with Sora returning to Quadratum throughout the game, I don't think it's that big of a deal. Less Disney worlds doesn't mean less Disney. Sora could visit Disneyland in Quadratum.

And I was thinking there could be collectibles like Souvenirs in each world. Sora can bring back a Storm Trooper helmet or something and put it somewhere in his apartment as decorations. Anyone in Quadratum going to his apartment would just think it's Disney merch - wouldn't break the world order.

 

[Sakuraba Neku]

Another area where we saw Kingdom Hearts’ popularity surge was seeing Sora in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Can you talk about your feelings on having Sora involved?

Most of the feedback when Sora was [announced] for Smash Bros. Ultimate was, ‘I can’t believe Disney okayed for him to be in this game.’ Behind the scenes, I was actually the one being very picky about his appearance in Smash Bros. Disney was the one that was like, ‘Go ahead! This is a great opportunity.’ I thought it would be tough to pull off because it might clash with the established lore in Kingdom Hearts and the Disney worlds, so it was an opportunity I had to consider very carefully.

Damn, not everything needs to be related to the plot. Nomura needs to stop complicating everything.

 

[Theme]

Just out of curiosity, but...is KHInsider dead, or dying?

Two days now, and this interview still hasn't been posted. And it's Gameinformer, so it's not like it even needs translating.

 

[Alpha Baymax]

Will we be spending a lot of time in Quadratum? Does having a more realistic setting give you bigger opportunities to try new things with the gameplay?

I think it will be a pretty good amount of time since it is set as the initial base within the game. You spend time there and then go to different worlds and then go back there. Because the graphics are more realistic this time around, I feel like there’s more of a realistic daily life aspect to Sora’s life. You can see him go in and out of his room and spend time there. I feel like players will get to see more of the day-to-day routines he goes through.

As far as worlds go, in the past, we’ve featured a lot of Disney worlds and among those, the most realistic one was probably Pirates of the Caribbean. This time around we’re spending some time in the actual real world. This was a challenge we had for ourselves – just to see how realistic can we make this, and that's something that we're working on right now. For now, we can't really dive into any further details than that.

This sort of answer gives further credence to the theory that the Disney worlds featured in Kingdom Hearts IV are going to be the Disney Live-Action Remakes. Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Maleficent, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Snow White. If we add Star Wars, not only does that make it seven Disney worlds but all of the Live-Action Remake worlds that I theorised would mirror the Disney properties of the original Princess of Hearts.

Fans have been very concerned about the lack of Final Fantasy characters in newer entries. Do you still want to dial down on the amount of them in the series, or is Kingdom Hearts IV a chance to bring in more cameos?

I understand there weren't that many Final Fantasy characters in Kingdom Hearts III. One thing I want to clear up is that a lot of fans are saying that Kingdom Hearts is this collaboration between Disney characters and Final Fantasy characters. But I really feel like that's not the basic concept of Kingdom Hearts; that's not exactly what Kingdom Hearts is.

When we released the first title, we had only a few original Kingdom Hearts characters. When they were interacting with really well-known, beloved Disney characters, I felt nobody really knew these new characters, so it was harder for them to stand their ground just yet. And so, we had a lot of Final Fantasy characters involved to lend a hand for everyone to get to know these [original Kingdom Hearts] characters better.

Now, there are so many original characters from Kingdom Hearts that are so well-loved, and people want to see more of those characters. With Kingdom Hearts III, since we did have so many original Kingdom Hearts characters, it was hard to find room for including more Final Fantasy characters. We're trying to find a good balance for that. I know that some fans were concerned about that and weren't too happy and wanted to see more Final Fantasy characters. That's something we definitely are thinking about. But just with the sheer number of original characters that we have now, it's hard to say what the exact balance is going to be and how it will play out in Kingdom Hearts IV. We can't really give you a firm reply on this just yet.

The fact that Nomura addressed this question means that Final Fantasy characters are coming back. If they weren't then this question wouldn't have been allowed to be published in the first place. The question of their relevance is an entirely different discussion altogether but this is promising for the Final Fantasy fans of Kingdom Hearts.

 

[Soldier]

This sort of answer gives further credence to the theory that the Disney worlds featured in Kingdom Hearts IV are going to be the Disney Live-Action Remakes. Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Maleficent, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Snow White. If we add Star Wars, not only does that make it seven Disney worlds but all of the Live-Action Remake worlds that I theorised would mirror the Disney properties of the original Princess of Hearts.



The fact that Nomura addressed this question means that Final Fantasy characters are coming back. If they weren't then this question wouldn't have been allowed to be published in the first place. The question of their relevance is an entirely different discussion altogether but this is promising for the Final Fantasy fans of Kingdom Hearts.

You know, a part of me thinks that Nomura's just paying us lip service with lines like that. "So many original characters that are so well loved" You mean like the ineffective Hayner, Pence and Olette who can't do much and work for a much more interesting Disney character? Or how about Twilight Town's mayor, who wants to see more of Seifer's "really cool moves" in II. Yeah, that totally beats improving KH 3's Olympus world, where you've already got Lightning Farron waiting in the wings, a character well known for rebelling against gods in a world that's already established a few Final Fantasy characters flocking there.
All I want is some FF 13 representation in KH because it was one of many things siphoning Nomura away from III, or fighting GIlgamesh. That's it!

 

[Elysium]

Just out of curiosity, but...is KHInsider dead, or dying?

Two days now, and this interview still hasn't been posted. And it's Gameinformer, so it's not like it even needs translating.

After the hype of the KHIV trailer died down, this forum really tapered off more than I've seen in the past. I think it's because a lot of us thought the game may be out late 2023, early 2024--whereas now it looks more like late 2025 if that. If it was nearer, I think the forum would make it through this valley, but who knows. This is the fourth major one that I know of (Destiny Islands, then The Ansem Report, then KH Ultimania, now KHI). I like the little Award pictures, so I hope this place sticks it out. *shrug*

With Sora keep going back to Quadratum, I'm hoping we get a weather cycle - Rain, Hail, Lightning, Heatwaves (maybe Sora, Strelitzia, Luxord and Yozora go to the beach)

I remember prior to KH2, there were rumors KH2's worlds would have different iterations (a time when a world was "Night" and a time when it was "Day"), but that didn't actually happen. It would be interesting for KH to actually explore weather and day cycles with Quadratum.

 

[bambii (aka foreteller)]

All I want is some FF 13 representation in KH because it was one of many things siphoning Nomura away from III, or fighting GIlgamesh. That's it!

Yeah, would be sick.

I totally get how trying to write in FF characters can really bloat the cast, but it seems to me like a missed opportunity that Kingdom Hearts has never once explored a Square Enix world. I would hazard a guess that there’s some kind of contractual obligation to include a minimum amount of Disney-specific content in a KH title, at which point it would make sense for the remaining levels to be more focused on building out KH’s original worlds/lore. It’s just a bit of a shame we can’t have both. I don’t really need to keep seeing the Hollow Bastion FF gang or anything though. A rare one-off cameo is fine.

 

[Darkspawn]

Just out of curiosity, but...is KHInsider dead, or dying?

Two days now, and this interview still hasn't been posted. And it's Gameinformer, so it's not like it even needs translating.

They usually can’t repost an English interview from another media outlet word for word. They have to summarize, which can take time. I imagine our site staff are just busy at the moment and with this thread already being here, it probably isn’t a huge priority.

 

[Theme]

They usually can’t repost an English interview from another media outlet word for word. They have to summarize, which can take time. I imagine our site staff are just busy at the moment and with this thread already being here, it probably isn’t a huge priority.

There's...nothing going on. That's precisely my point. This interview was the only thing to happen to two months, and...they're too busy for it? Maybe get some new staff to help out? And summarizing this won't take long lol - most of it is points from earlier interviews, apart from a few new bits. But even that is being ignored, or forgotten, or whatever.

It's honestly depressing that KH13 is becoming the more reliable fansite, since half the time, they just post utterly trite bullshit like some crappy interview with a youtube influencer who made a rap song who and inserted a single, tiny little reference lol.

After the hype of the KHIV trailer died down, this forum really tapered off more than I've seen in the past. I think it's because a lot of us thought the game may be out late 2023, early 2024--whereas now it looks more like late 2025 if that. If it was nearer, I think the forum would make it through this valley, but who knows. This is the fourth major one that I know of (Destiny Islands, then The Ansem Report, then KH Ultimania, now KHI). I like the little Award pictures, so I hope this place sticks it out. *shrug*

I was...talking about the main site lol. Forums, by comparison, are brimming with lifeforms.

 

[Face My Fears]

Well geez i was hoping we get a mix of New and Classic Disney Worlds (Like Jungle Book, Treasure Planet, Emperor's New Groove, Atlantis the Lost Empire, Meet the Robinsons, Pocahontas etc) but that's not gonna Happen.

I'm really hoping for at least 6 DISNEY worlds. 2 CGI, 2 live action and 2 traditionally animated (NOT Hercules again).