Was Kingdom Hearts only meant to be one game?

[KeybladeKnightQ]

So you'd be fine if the series just ended and never continued after 1?

 

[VoidGear.]

I don't think I would've been satisfied with KH1's ending so I'm glad it wasn't the end. It's just not enough to me. KH can never end before I actually see SRK together on DI (and I don't mean for like 5 seconds in the ending cutscene).

 

[BlackOsprey]

So you'd be fine if the series just ended and never continued after 1?

Personally, I probably would've never gotten into the series if it hadn't been for the DS games, and even if I had, I probably would've flipped if I'd found out that SE had no plans to continue after KH1. But from a narrative standpoint, it's more or less a complete and self-contained story.

 

[Lnds500]

The original would have ended with saving the 7 Princesses.

I believe Sakaguchi "suggested" to Nomura to make it more open-ended and complicated (because of the "FF legacy") in the end so they could accommodate more sequels. If you think about it, the story climaxes on Hollow Bastion, it could work really well if they stopped it there.

I'm sure I've read all that from Ultimanias/interviews

 

[Chuman]

I've been a fan since day one and I just KNEW there had to be a sequel. Many days were spent watching yu-gi-oh, playing KH1 and seeing the CoM commericials in anticipation. Obviously it was meant to be a one off thing (just like FF), but it became so much more. KH2 is the source of 90% of my nostalgia.

 

[Max]

I think that if it was meant to be only one game, then it probably would have been only one game and had a conclusive ending.

Not only was everything not totally tidied up at the end, but the secret ending with Roxas in The World That Never was just screamed intentions for a sequel. They may not have knew they would get a sequel, but there's no way they just planned on ending there.

 

[Alpha Baymax]

I mean if you want facts...

The development team made it so it could stand on its own but they wanted to make a sequel, but honestly didn't know if that would be possible since Squaresoft and Enix were merging and nobody knew what would happen after.

I don't think that the merger was the ambiguous point, I think it's more to do with the expected sales target of the original title. Remember, Disney was really conservative about this product (especially with Mickey's singular scene). Kingdom Hearts came out when Michael Eisner was the CEO of The Walt Disney Company... it'd be too risky for Square to franchise something they only developed for and not own the rights to.

But back to the quote, if anything, Kingdom Hearts was one of the positive signs for Enix to absorb Square. Enix had the money, Square had the brand recognition and internal development studios that Enix was yearning for hence the merger.