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Updated with footnotes and a few minor re-wordings intended to clarify areas I've seen people wondering about on the forums.
Translated from FFAC7 Reunion's transcription (FF7AC reunion).
---------------------------------------------------------------
KH BbS is going to be over 50 hours long?!
-- About controlling each of the three characters: how does that work?
Nomura: At the start you'll choose who you want to control, and you'll use that one character until you clear their story. If you play with another character, you'll uncover facts that you can't learn with the other characters. Each world has scenarios for all three, each has different bosses, so it's like there are three separate games included. If you play alongside a friend, the contents and the way the story advances will be different depending on the character you choose, so watch out for spoilers.[1]
-- I see. So how long is the play time for each character?
Nomura: According to our current estimates, about 15 hours. Customising your deck will also take up time, so if you play with all three characters the game's length may exceed 50 hours.
-- The three characters move about completely separately?
Nomura: Usually, yes, but occasionally two or three of them will have a scene together. So Terra is searching for Master Xehanort's whereabouts, Ven is chasing after him, and Aqua is looking for Ven but worrying about Terra at the same time. On top of the main storyline, each character's timeline is different.
-- Not much information has been released about Aqua so far. What kind of person is she?
Nomura: She's incredibly serious. She's a strict honour student. She's a little bit shy about some things that she's done. She puts up a cold front, but she's kind to her friends. She's the most level-headed of the three.
-- Aqua has some movements a little like floating or gliding, and some characteristic moves in battle, too.
Nomura: Her movements are that of a so-called "magician girl"[2] (laughs)
-- I think fans of the series are wondering about the true nature of Ven, who resembles Roxas, and what lies in Terra's future...
Nomura: We've given a lot of hints in that area to help you guess, so I think there are some people who can figure it out. As usual there are a lot of riddles in this game, but all the fine details will be explained. Ven has some aspects of Roxas, and of the traditional protagonist Sora in him. His positive personality is close to Sora's, but Sora doesn't usually worry about anything, whereas Ven can be serious. So maybe he's half Sora and half Roxas. But because of things like the unusual way he holds his Keyblade, it will be a different feeling to play him compared to Sora or Roxas.
-- What can you tell us about the "Unversed" enemies?
Nomura: The English name will be "Unversed".[3] The meaning is "those that are not versed in life" and they grow out of negative emotions. You'll understand the meaning of this when you play the game.
Great expectations for new worlds
-- Two new worlds have appeared.
Nomura: This time, we're weaving a more complicated story than before. Not just for the story of "Birth by Sleep" itself; there will also be deeper connections to the stories of the Disney titles.
-- In "Cinderella" you're even delving into the famous scene with the glass slipper.
Nomura: We particularly wanted to include that event. When you say "Cinderella" you think of the glass slipper, right? (laughs) Also, it's not everything, but there are scenes where you follow sub-characters too. Like in Ven's case, he meets Jaq.
-- And the "Lilo and Stitch" world is something you can be satisfied with, too.
Nomura: It's a story from before he was called Stitch, so this time instead of Hawaii the spaceship will be the main setting. He's a very popular character, and setting it in a spaceship should make things interesting.
-- And things like the way the "seven princesses" came about will also become clear...?
Nomura: The part about "hearts of light, without darkness" is connected to the main storyline. But this isn't to do with the moment of the princesses' birth. "Something" awakens in people who have hearts containing light,[4] and so the three protagonists are investigating this.[5]
Exhilirating battles that can be played without thinking
-- What about the battle concept?
Nomura: "Birth by Sleep" is a "Kingdom Hearts" that's more evolved than "358/2 Days" or "coded". Each of the protagonists has very individual movements, so it will feel totally different to playing as Sora. This game might just be the most exhilarating in the whole series. The new battle system with its Deck Commands and Shoot Lock really adds to the exhilaration.
-- What are the characteristics of a battle using Deck Commands?
Nomura: I think that rather than thinking very carefully while fighting, it's more about fighting using your reflexes. I think you'll be able to sense when to press buttons, that your body will naturally learn to go "triangle next".
-- So you can set up the Commands in your Deck yourself?
Nomura: That's right. So that you don't have to manage complex things during battle, you customise various things beforehand. Like "Chain of Memories", you construct your Deck beforehand, and during battles just use techniques one after another. They don't run out like cards, but you need to charge them. With the inclusion of Decks, the system of growth has more or less turned into a system of change. Maybe a bit like a minigame... it's changed a lot.
-- It's something we haven't seen in the series so far.
Nomura: I wonder if we went too far (laughs). It's a system we've been preparing up for some time now, and from now on we'll be putting out constant information, so look forward to it.
-- Can you change the the Command style into whatever style you want?
Nomura: For techniques that can change style, each has a specific set of conditions that must be met. So once you understand that system you'll be able to get the style you want. However, the aim was so that people don't have generally have to think too hard when playing.
-- So with styles, it might be easier to use a walkthrough for the ones that change?
Nomura: Of course, there are walkthroughs that will tell you certain enemies are weak to fire, and about increasing damage. But the changing styles are more about making it easy to have fun using lots of different attacks.
-- The Finish Commands can also evolve, making for rich variety in battles, right?
Nomura: There really are all sorts of conditions that change commands, and they're related to the "D-LINK" system that we haven't released much information about yet. "Kingdom Hearts" doesn't really aim for difficult action; there are a lot of users who play by mashing the same button. That's what this is based on. Even if you just mash the same button things won't get boring, the system is made so that you can still enjoy changes. You can also use Action Commands with just one button, so you can easily enjoy action with a wealth of variety. The only thing is that by incorporating too much of this new system, the three protagonists are too strong and the importance of using tricks to defeat bosses has faded a bit (laughs). We plan to work on balancing that out.[6]
And the next game that everyone's wondering about!?
-- The Tokyo Game Show is coming up, will there be any demos?
Nomura: At the moment we're giving priority to development in order of release dates, so there won't be anything big, just a small space for demos. We can't show videos in a closed megatheatre every year. For those who play the "Birth by Sleep" or "Final Fantasy XIII" demos, we plan to have a small screen with special trailers for those two titles and "Dissidia FF Universal Tuning". That's the company's plan at the moment, and we probably won't prepare any new trailers for "FF Versus XIII", "FF Agito XIII" or "The Third Birthday".
-- So, what about the release date for this title?
Nomura: We're trying to adjust it in relation to the release date of "FF XIII". In terms of actual development "FF XIII" has proceeded further, so "FF XIII" might be first. But I think we'll be able to let you play it without making you wait too long.
-- Do you think people will want to replay the first title after clearing this one?
Nomura: Hmmm, I think there are a lot of puzzling elements, so maybe they'll want to play the next game...[7] and there'll be a secret movie too.
-- The next game!? Do you mean "III"!?
Nomura: The next game will be the next game (laughs)
---------------------------------------------------------------
General translation notes:
Languages are not interchangeable. There's no such thing as an exact translation. You can't look at a Japanese sentence and say, "Here's the exact English equivalent." Even simple words don't always have exact counterparts; for example the Japanese "kirei" in Japanese covers elements of both "pretty" and "clean" from English. So in all cases where you see an interview translated, please remember that the exact English wording is the translator's wording. Big theories based on a translator's word choice are on shaky foundations, as we saw with the "Unbirth" controversy. Translations can only give you a sense of the underlying meaning of the original text, they shouldn't be treated as verbatim gospel.
So if you have any queries at all about wording in this interview that aren't answered in the footnotes, let me know and I'll be happy to clarify as much as possible what my understanding of the original Japanese is, and go into detail about any connotations as far as I can interpret them.
---------------------------------------------------------------
[1] There's no reason to think Nomura is implying there'll be a multiplayer mode here. He's saying that if one of your friends is also playing through the game, using a different character, you may learn different things so should be careful not to spoil each other.
[2] Nomura calls Aqua a 'majokko', which is a pretty diminuitive/cutesy way to say 'magic girl'. I don't think English really has an equivalent; 'little witch' is far from cutesy...
[3] Aaah, the Unversed controversy. First of all I'll refer to my notes above the interview re the inevitable inaccuracy of translation. If you want more detail, read on.
Japanese uses a lot of words borrowed from foreign languages. In most cases they're borrowed from English, and in most cases they're easy to interpret. [i]"Konpyuutaa"[/i] is obviously 'computer'. But would you guess that [i]"pan"[/i]means bread if you didn't speak Dutch, or that [i]"ankeeto"[/i] comes from the French [i]"enquête"[/i]? To further complicate things, Japanese as a language has a lot less sounds than English, so many different English sounds are represented the same way when written in Japanese phonetics. For example, if you saw a ファーストキチン (faasuto kichin) in Japan, you'd have no way of knowing whether if was 'First Kitchen' or 'Fast Kitchen'. B and V are often ambiguous or confused since there's no "v" in Japanese - similar to the L and R pronunciation issue that I'm sure you've noticed.
So interpreting a word made from phonetic characters can be a tricky business. Multiple possible interpretations of phonetics are bad enough; when the Japanese phonetics are being used to represent an imaginary word someone has made up for fiction, all a translator can do is guess based on the sounds. Which is why 'ambers' was originally posited as a potential interpretation here; 'ambers' and 'unbirth' would both be written the same way in phonetic Japanese characters.
The things we've been calling 'Unbirths' were really 'Unversed' from the start, we just didn't know the correct English word for them. This doesn't mean that they're called 'Unversed' in English and 'Unbirths' in Japanese, as I've seen one person ask. It means they never were 'Unbirths', even in Japanese - we just interpreted the phonetic characters wrong. (Totally understandable given the title of the game!)[4] As far as I can tell Nomura is indeed saying that the seven princesses are not born as princesses, that they become that way after something awakens in them. The implication is also that this can only happen for certain people, who have "hearts where light resides" - interpret that however you wish.
[5] Originally I had here, "It's a condition the three protagonists are investigating," implying that being a Princess of Heart is a 'condition'. Although Nomura is saying that people aren't born Princesses of Heart, I've realised I slightly mis-phrased this sentence and have rewritten it because I've seen people comment on the word 'condition'. The literal meaning of the last sentence is something like, "The three protagonists are in a condition of investigating this," referring to the condition/state of the protagonists in the game's story. Which sounds a little awkward in English, so I've removed the word 'condition' and just said that the three protagonists are investigating.
[6] Nomura clearly implies here that the game being too easy is something they're concerned about, and that they intend to fix that to make sure players do need to figure out strategies for defeating bosses.
[7] With respect to the question of whether Nomura is talking about KH1 or an as-yet unannounced 'next game' here, my reading is that it's the latter.
Translated from FFAC7 Reunion's transcription (FF7AC reunion).
---------------------------------------------------------------
KH BbS is going to be over 50 hours long?!
-- About controlling each of the three characters: how does that work?
Nomura: At the start you'll choose who you want to control, and you'll use that one character until you clear their story. If you play with another character, you'll uncover facts that you can't learn with the other characters. Each world has scenarios for all three, each has different bosses, so it's like there are three separate games included. If you play alongside a friend, the contents and the way the story advances will be different depending on the character you choose, so watch out for spoilers.[1]
-- I see. So how long is the play time for each character?
Nomura: According to our current estimates, about 15 hours. Customising your deck will also take up time, so if you play with all three characters the game's length may exceed 50 hours.
-- The three characters move about completely separately?
Nomura: Usually, yes, but occasionally two or three of them will have a scene together. So Terra is searching for Master Xehanort's whereabouts, Ven is chasing after him, and Aqua is looking for Ven but worrying about Terra at the same time. On top of the main storyline, each character's timeline is different.
-- Not much information has been released about Aqua so far. What kind of person is she?
Nomura: She's incredibly serious. She's a strict honour student. She's a little bit shy about some things that she's done. She puts up a cold front, but she's kind to her friends. She's the most level-headed of the three.
-- Aqua has some movements a little like floating or gliding, and some characteristic moves in battle, too.
Nomura: Her movements are that of a so-called "magician girl"[2] (laughs)
-- I think fans of the series are wondering about the true nature of Ven, who resembles Roxas, and what lies in Terra's future...
Nomura: We've given a lot of hints in that area to help you guess, so I think there are some people who can figure it out. As usual there are a lot of riddles in this game, but all the fine details will be explained. Ven has some aspects of Roxas, and of the traditional protagonist Sora in him. His positive personality is close to Sora's, but Sora doesn't usually worry about anything, whereas Ven can be serious. So maybe he's half Sora and half Roxas. But because of things like the unusual way he holds his Keyblade, it will be a different feeling to play him compared to Sora or Roxas.
-- What can you tell us about the "Unversed" enemies?
Nomura: The English name will be "Unversed".[3] The meaning is "those that are not versed in life" and they grow out of negative emotions. You'll understand the meaning of this when you play the game.
Great expectations for new worlds
-- Two new worlds have appeared.
Nomura: This time, we're weaving a more complicated story than before. Not just for the story of "Birth by Sleep" itself; there will also be deeper connections to the stories of the Disney titles.
-- In "Cinderella" you're even delving into the famous scene with the glass slipper.
Nomura: We particularly wanted to include that event. When you say "Cinderella" you think of the glass slipper, right? (laughs) Also, it's not everything, but there are scenes where you follow sub-characters too. Like in Ven's case, he meets Jaq.
-- And the "Lilo and Stitch" world is something you can be satisfied with, too.
Nomura: It's a story from before he was called Stitch, so this time instead of Hawaii the spaceship will be the main setting. He's a very popular character, and setting it in a spaceship should make things interesting.
-- And things like the way the "seven princesses" came about will also become clear...?
Nomura: The part about "hearts of light, without darkness" is connected to the main storyline. But this isn't to do with the moment of the princesses' birth. "Something" awakens in people who have hearts containing light,[4] and so the three protagonists are investigating this.[5]
Exhilirating battles that can be played without thinking
-- What about the battle concept?
Nomura: "Birth by Sleep" is a "Kingdom Hearts" that's more evolved than "358/2 Days" or "coded". Each of the protagonists has very individual movements, so it will feel totally different to playing as Sora. This game might just be the most exhilarating in the whole series. The new battle system with its Deck Commands and Shoot Lock really adds to the exhilaration.
-- What are the characteristics of a battle using Deck Commands?
Nomura: I think that rather than thinking very carefully while fighting, it's more about fighting using your reflexes. I think you'll be able to sense when to press buttons, that your body will naturally learn to go "triangle next".
-- So you can set up the Commands in your Deck yourself?
Nomura: That's right. So that you don't have to manage complex things during battle, you customise various things beforehand. Like "Chain of Memories", you construct your Deck beforehand, and during battles just use techniques one after another. They don't run out like cards, but you need to charge them. With the inclusion of Decks, the system of growth has more or less turned into a system of change. Maybe a bit like a minigame... it's changed a lot.
-- It's something we haven't seen in the series so far.
Nomura: I wonder if we went too far (laughs). It's a system we've been preparing up for some time now, and from now on we'll be putting out constant information, so look forward to it.
-- Can you change the the Command style into whatever style you want?
Nomura: For techniques that can change style, each has a specific set of conditions that must be met. So once you understand that system you'll be able to get the style you want. However, the aim was so that people don't have generally have to think too hard when playing.
-- So with styles, it might be easier to use a walkthrough for the ones that change?
Nomura: Of course, there are walkthroughs that will tell you certain enemies are weak to fire, and about increasing damage. But the changing styles are more about making it easy to have fun using lots of different attacks.
-- The Finish Commands can also evolve, making for rich variety in battles, right?
Nomura: There really are all sorts of conditions that change commands, and they're related to the "D-LINK" system that we haven't released much information about yet. "Kingdom Hearts" doesn't really aim for difficult action; there are a lot of users who play by mashing the same button. That's what this is based on. Even if you just mash the same button things won't get boring, the system is made so that you can still enjoy changes. You can also use Action Commands with just one button, so you can easily enjoy action with a wealth of variety. The only thing is that by incorporating too much of this new system, the three protagonists are too strong and the importance of using tricks to defeat bosses has faded a bit (laughs). We plan to work on balancing that out.[6]
And the next game that everyone's wondering about!?
-- The Tokyo Game Show is coming up, will there be any demos?
Nomura: At the moment we're giving priority to development in order of release dates, so there won't be anything big, just a small space for demos. We can't show videos in a closed megatheatre every year. For those who play the "Birth by Sleep" or "Final Fantasy XIII" demos, we plan to have a small screen with special trailers for those two titles and "Dissidia FF Universal Tuning". That's the company's plan at the moment, and we probably won't prepare any new trailers for "FF Versus XIII", "FF Agito XIII" or "The Third Birthday".
-- So, what about the release date for this title?
Nomura: We're trying to adjust it in relation to the release date of "FF XIII". In terms of actual development "FF XIII" has proceeded further, so "FF XIII" might be first. But I think we'll be able to let you play it without making you wait too long.
-- Do you think people will want to replay the first title after clearing this one?
Nomura: Hmmm, I think there are a lot of puzzling elements, so maybe they'll want to play the next game...[7] and there'll be a secret movie too.
-- The next game!? Do you mean "III"!?
Nomura: The next game will be the next game (laughs)
---------------------------------------------------------------
General translation notes:
Languages are not interchangeable. There's no such thing as an exact translation. You can't look at a Japanese sentence and say, "Here's the exact English equivalent." Even simple words don't always have exact counterparts; for example the Japanese "kirei" in Japanese covers elements of both "pretty" and "clean" from English. So in all cases where you see an interview translated, please remember that the exact English wording is the translator's wording. Big theories based on a translator's word choice are on shaky foundations, as we saw with the "Unbirth" controversy. Translations can only give you a sense of the underlying meaning of the original text, they shouldn't be treated as verbatim gospel.
So if you have any queries at all about wording in this interview that aren't answered in the footnotes, let me know and I'll be happy to clarify as much as possible what my understanding of the original Japanese is, and go into detail about any connotations as far as I can interpret them.
---------------------------------------------------------------
[1] There's no reason to think Nomura is implying there'll be a multiplayer mode here. He's saying that if one of your friends is also playing through the game, using a different character, you may learn different things so should be careful not to spoil each other.
[2] Nomura calls Aqua a 'majokko', which is a pretty diminuitive/cutesy way to say 'magic girl'. I don't think English really has an equivalent; 'little witch' is far from cutesy...
[3] Aaah, the Unversed controversy. First of all I'll refer to my notes above the interview re the inevitable inaccuracy of translation. If you want more detail, read on.
Japanese uses a lot of words borrowed from foreign languages. In most cases they're borrowed from English, and in most cases they're easy to interpret. [i]"Konpyuutaa"[/i] is obviously 'computer'. But would you guess that [i]"pan"[/i]means bread if you didn't speak Dutch, or that [i]"ankeeto"[/i] comes from the French [i]"enquête"[/i]? To further complicate things, Japanese as a language has a lot less sounds than English, so many different English sounds are represented the same way when written in Japanese phonetics. For example, if you saw a ファーストキチン (faasuto kichin) in Japan, you'd have no way of knowing whether if was 'First Kitchen' or 'Fast Kitchen'. B and V are often ambiguous or confused since there's no "v" in Japanese - similar to the L and R pronunciation issue that I'm sure you've noticed.
So interpreting a word made from phonetic characters can be a tricky business. Multiple possible interpretations of phonetics are bad enough; when the Japanese phonetics are being used to represent an imaginary word someone has made up for fiction, all a translator can do is guess based on the sounds. Which is why 'ambers' was originally posited as a potential interpretation here; 'ambers' and 'unbirth' would both be written the same way in phonetic Japanese characters.
The things we've been calling 'Unbirths' were really 'Unversed' from the start, we just didn't know the correct English word for them. This doesn't mean that they're called 'Unversed' in English and 'Unbirths' in Japanese, as I've seen one person ask. It means they never were 'Unbirths', even in Japanese - we just interpreted the phonetic characters wrong. (Totally understandable given the title of the game!)[4] As far as I can tell Nomura is indeed saying that the seven princesses are not born as princesses, that they become that way after something awakens in them. The implication is also that this can only happen for certain people, who have "hearts where light resides" - interpret that however you wish.
[5] Originally I had here, "It's a condition the three protagonists are investigating," implying that being a Princess of Heart is a 'condition'. Although Nomura is saying that people aren't born Princesses of Heart, I've realised I slightly mis-phrased this sentence and have rewritten it because I've seen people comment on the word 'condition'. The literal meaning of the last sentence is something like, "The three protagonists are in a condition of investigating this," referring to the condition/state of the protagonists in the game's story. Which sounds a little awkward in English, so I've removed the word 'condition' and just said that the three protagonists are investigating.
[6] Nomura clearly implies here that the game being too easy is something they're concerned about, and that they intend to fix that to make sure players do need to figure out strategies for defeating bosses.
[7] With respect to the question of whether Nomura is talking about KH1 or an as-yet unannounced 'next game' here, my reading is that it's the latter.
