It's somewhat funny that some of these questions go back all the way to BBS or even CoM, showing just how many gaps there still are leftover from the old saga that KH III didn't address so the next saga certainly won't be a completely fresh thing but still retain several hooks to the older titles.

Ephemer continuing to appear is quite a positive piece of news though, looking forward to that.

Also this one:

Q. What is the difference between falling into darkness (as happened to Riku and Aqua) and becoming Heartless and creating Nobodies? A. Whether or not the heart remains. The situations are completely different.

Glad to finally get that cleared that up, but if only this information would be also in the main medium.

We're still asking things like how Riku got Kairi's Keyblade? I thought by this point people just accepted it wasn't planned out from the beginning. Some of these questions I have to wonder, like did they really think we'd learn who Demyx is from a Q@A? Oh who am I kidding, I would have probably done the same thing lol. Though I'm glad a question was asked about Lea's Keyblade. A better one would have been why he needed one in the first place...

man i knew UX localization replacing the "world of ※" with some made up thing was a mistake ? i s2g that game is like left hand not knowing what right hand is doing

What kind of symbol is this ※ anyways? An X with four points...like the four realms (light, dark, in-between, sleep) or what?

This reminds me somewhat of the Rebuild of Evangelion movies which also had a knack for using rarely known but actual existing symbols.

※ is pretty common in Japan, you use it to indicate a kind of footnote/side note.

Added a bit more.

[LIST]
[*]The UXDR team has already disbanded.
[*]The story had to be put together in full and couldn't be released piece by piece.
[*]The current work on DR is being done by the two animators who worked on the UX event scenes (reminder that that second animator was only hired within the last year of UX's service)
[*]They were originally not going to revive Roxas and Xion, but fans' voices were so strong that they felt they had no choice but to bring them back.
[/LIST]

These two animators really deserve a big medal and some extra money for all the hard work they're dishing out.

The Roxas and Xion bit is interesting, so in the beginning there was only the intention to save/bring back the BBS trio?
The decision to change that however had to be made already by the time Blank Points, the secret ending of the original BBS was made as there Roxas and Xion were already included.

See this is what I don't understand. Everyone in the fanbase loves saying (and I agree to an extent) never listen to the fans because we don't know what we want. On the flip side there's been plenty of instances where fan demand made the KH team do something, but in the other hand there's been plenty of times where demand for something is really quite high and its snubbed out of what seems like spite.

How does the team decide which fan demand to listen to and which not to? Because I'm not gonna pretend like demand for Sephiroth was not a lot higher than Roxas (debatable) and Xion (I know she's popular in Japan but against sephiroth?).

Anyway this is really good stuff, interesting to see a lot of questions on games as far as KH2, I really appreciate the staff for putting this together

I remember a lot of discussion pre-KH3 that "mending their hurt" or whatever doesn't necessarily equate to a revival, but helping the characters resolve unfinished business and regrets. Presumably that's what they meant to do for Roxas and Xion.

And this is just me, but the fact that this entire trio has cheated death purely due to their popularity really doesn't sit well. I hope they won't shoehorn them into places they have no business being in because of this.

Sephiroth was popular for being a cool character from FF, Roxas and Xion were popular because of their emotional story that is directly linked to the main cast.

This is all that matters to me, Ephemer as a character feels like an amalgamation of Sora and Riku's personality so it's nice that we'll be seeing more of him.


Nomura didn't add Final Fantasy characters for Kingdom Hearts III because there were already so many spin-off games featuring Final Fantasy characters. Clearly, Nomura miscalculated the demand for them hence why they returned for ReMind.

The reasons for popularity don't mean anything when it was the levels of it that got them included, I mean Nomura must have been asked at almost every event KH3 was shown "what about the FF characters" but I digress, I'm bitter about it and everyone knows that. It was fan demand that bought Vivi into KH2 as well after all.

I guess it depends on in what area the demand is as well as how the devs themselves feel about it. Remember how Lea/Axels role in the story got vastly expanded because so many of the involved members of the dev team liked him so much?

Things like Sephiroth or some gameplay elements are most likely just side stuff in the eyes of Nomura & co. while Roxas and Xion are, arguably, parts of the KH series' own central lore and elements and their huge amount of fan popularity will ensure at least partly continuous attention of those who follow KH mainly for those two characters even if they are reduced in the future to "The cavalry" or occasional cameo roles instead of central story plots.

Considering how especially the FF cameo elements were almost completely thrown out (something Nomura apparently did against some dissent from the other devs) I do guess there was a sort of priority list.
I also remember that Nomura once stated the original decision to include FF characters as cameos was solely to fill some roles that couldn't be filled with own original characters back then.

Up to now the KH series has a plethora of its own original characters inhabiting its universe so Nomura probably thought the FF cameos were no longer needed or even in the way of the actual original characters.

In KH III the roles filled formerly by Leon, Cid, Yuffie and Aerith were indeed mostly taken over by characters like Ansem the Wise, Ienzo or Even despite those technically spoken also not being characters that needed to return.

---
The sheer number of questions going back to older games like KH2, BBS or CoM yet again shows how good KH III did with clearing house concerning baggage from older games, lol.

Ah ok, that makes sense too, so the decision did not have to necessarily been made already with Blank Points.
By the time of DDD though it was pretty clear that they were going that route though, with the foundation laid by Re: Coded clarifying some stuff already hinted at in CoM.

It's been 4 years since we've heard this excuse, sorry, I didn't accept it then and I don't accept it now. Idk why people assume that other fans don't know the "reasons" given, we do, we just don't accept them. And actually the reason he gave wasn't because they were in the spin off, it's because he thought there was too much going on in KH3 anyway.

Personally, I want Final Fantasy characters to return in Kingdom Hearts but I want to see more representation from Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy XI, Final Fantasy XII, and Final Fantasy XIII. Heck, give us a Kefka secret battle instead of Sephiroth again to spice things up.

Well, Roxas and Xion are related to Lea, so I think they should appear in the future. In any case, their return was conceived back in the days of BBS.

I’d say the majority doesn’t even demand to include the FF characters into the main plot.
I’d be totally okay with some cool cameos like Cloud and Tifa in KH2 in form of a side quest or an additional boss battle, that’s it. But just give us anything

How are you extrapolating that much from a single sentence. Obviously the context of actually developing the games is taken into account and Nomura didn't just keep track of fan support until he got 1,000 "support points". Many factors are involved when making decisions about game direction, which shouldn't need explaining at all.

Lea is hanging onto relevancy by a thread, frankly, all because the devs continue to allow him to have his cake and eat it.

Anyway, aibo's recounting also suggests that Roxas and Xion's return was not set in stone until very late, so the idea that it was foreshadowed since BBS is false.

I don't really understand you.
Lea is a popular character, why can't he get his fame? Or if he is revealed more as a character. RAX trio is the type of characters whose stories are almost more interesting than the story of the main characters. In any case, it was conceived a long time ago. If not at the time of BBS, then at the time of Re:Coded. More than 10 years have passed.

Quite frankly, since DDD I've gotten the vibe that Lea/Axel actually overtook Roxas and Xion in terms of relevancy, something that got further ironed out in KH III with the whole "Subject X"-thing and the vastly increased focus on Isa/Saix and his role as well.

---
Yea, the "foreshadowing" parts in Blank Points (from BBS), Re: Coded and DDD were deliberately kept ambiguous as while both Roxas and Xion were featured heavily it was indeed nowhere spelled out how their suffering would be ended/solved. A full out complete revival was possible to be taken from it, but not set in stone so it is feasible that they were on the fence about the final decision how to solve it for quite a time.

It is also somewhat telling that, for the whole seven main players on the "good" side, Sora, Kairi, Riku, Mickey, Aqua, Terra and Ventus would have been enough, no one from the former Organisation including Lea, Roxas or Xion needed.
---

I am honestly happy about their continuous presence though, even if just for the hope of some twin shenanigans happening with Ven and Roxas confusing friend and foe alike.

I totally forgot about the whole Subject X plot. I wonder how that’s going to fit in the overall narrative

[parsehtml]
OK, so I feel dumb for calling the fans at the Q&A stupid because I didn't think they would ask where Riku got Kairi's keyblade, but thank you to whoever asked that and thank you Nomura for deflecting again lol.

The way that he responded to the Isa question, which I was always curious about, makes it seem like Isa/Lea are going to be used more in the future. I always assumed it was from Xemnas torturing Isa to confirm his loyalty when he was found looking for Girl X.

I hope they explain Maleficent and her search for the black box soon. I don't like hearing this "perhaps" stuff with Nomura. It makes it seem like Maleficent is a side thought going forward which is worrying.

I like the idea of Lea's keyblade being broken, so that he won't continue to use it and go back to his chakram. However, this is a great moment to either: 1) never let him use a keyblade again (what I'm hoping for) or 2) redesign his keyblade to something better (never liked his design) AND explain where everyone goes to just get new keyblades.

On the Roxas/Xion thing... UGH. Nomura don't listen to the fans on things like this! As much as I love Roxas and Xion, I didn't want them to come back. Their stories ended and their sacrifices were made. Handing out "happy endings" to everyone sort of diluted what their sacrifice meant. Not only that, but making that choice to bring them back opened up a whole can of worms. Such as, whose keyblades are they using?

Why didn't Nomura just do both (KH4 and Verum Rex)? You know, maybe it's better he didn't load up on games. I'm really hoping that he can focus solely on KH4 and deliver a solid story this time around. He's starting fresh.

Thanks for putting this together![/parsehtml]

lol I had completely forgotten about the Black Box LOL

I've just been assuming "location of UX computer" was correct for a while now. But...

Honestly, AXEL was really popular. Lea - on his own - has been kind of flat. What we got in 3D and KH3 didn't really build on who Axel was and actually made Lea kind of boring. His best moment was reuniting with Roxas and Xion, and that was mostly because those two got reunited. They made Lea into this 4th wall breaking Deadpool type which sort of fell flat.

Q. Where did Riku get the Keyblade he gave to Kairi in KH2? A. We'll follow up on that somewhere in the future.

Well that got a legit LOL of me.

I take it that "Da fuk be up with Switch?" was a rejected question.

Lea and Axel are the same person. In case you forgot, he soon used his keyblade when he opened the way to Scala. So, he hasn't disappeared anywhere. And it was stupid to give him a qiblade, solely for the sake of breaking him. Again, what's wrong if they show up in the future and help Lea and Isa search for subject X for example? If not you, that is, humans which follow the story solely for the sake of RAX trio. In any case, their return was planned for quite a long time. Axel was also brought back because it was popular.

Wow, this is a little surreal. So, I was actually the one who asked Nomura if Roxas and Xion were always meant to come back. I also asked about Isa's scar (though it's possible I wasn't the only one). On the topic of Roxas and Xion, personally, I never got the sense that either were meant to come back physically, and to me, their return in KH3 felt like cheesy fanservice. That is why I asked the question in the first place (which I can't believe he actually answered honestly, holy shit!).

Q3: Is it possible that Roxas has a heart? A: It is thought that it could be Ventus’ heart. In KHII FM there were clues to him having a heart, and in Days we saw Roxas crying--proof that he could have a heart. As was said in Q1, he has taken a lot of himself from Ventus. But perhaps when Sora and Roxas were separated, Ventus’ heart stayed in Roxas? (BBS Ultimania, March 2010)

Before KH3, my interpretation of the story was that Roxas was born with Ventus's heart. Due to that, I assumed that when Ventus was finally revived, he'd have all of Roxas's development and memories. Roxas's character arc would thus be resolved through Ventus's revival. That was what I always assumed was meant by healing Roxas's torment in Re:Coded. To me, Roxas and Ventus were the same person. That is always how I saw the story going, and based off of Nomura's response to my tweet, I am now utterly convinced of it.

–Does Xion have anything to do with Birth by Sleep? Nomura: I think although many people want Xion to come back once more, I’m afraid to say that it’s difficult. (Famitsu, July 2009.)

As for Xion, Nomura always said that Xion was not intended to return. She was created from Sora's memories of Kairi, so it wouldn't really make any sense, hence Nomura saying it'd be "difficult". I assumed that Xion's existence would be remembered, and that would end her torment. Her lived experience would kind of be "passed on" to Kairi. And that was why the Lea/Kairi relationship was such a strong focus in KH3.

I would not have brought anyone back in the first place, personally, after KH2...buuuut now that they are back, they better damn sure have more presence in the future. Because the briefest of reunion scenes with minimal dialogue did not come close to satisfactory payoff for the years of emotional ups and downs trios like RAX and TAV put us through. I need deep, rich, interpersonal communication with them, Persona style. Which we probably won't get, but even so.

What I don't want is for KH to fall into the usual shonen trap of sweeping aside established characters while introducing and focusing on a vast horde of new ones. Like, I don't care about these people. Not while there's still great depth of material to mine from your existing cast.

Of course the question about what happened to the Chamber of Repose didn't get answered.

One thing I could see happen is Roxas getting confused as Ventus by one of the Fortellers that isn't Luxu

I love Roxas and Xion. They are my favourite characters. I just thought that they served their purpose - no matter how tragic it was - and they could have ended there. Bringing them back just for the sake of a happy ending is great and all, but now it opens up the door of people (including me) wanting them to be used more frequently and better, when in reality, it seems like the series might be cutting back on original characters.

How much depth and attention will Roxas and Xion get if they're on the backseat to Lea and Isa's search for Subject X?

Here is my perspective. I think that Xion and Roxas's unplanned return overshadowed what was supposed to be Lea's true goal in KH3: saving Isa from being possessed.

— Did [Lea] have any prior knowledge [of wielding a Keyblade]? Nomura: In order to wield a Keyblade, the most important requirement is to be “the owner of a strong heart.” Regardless if it’s a good heart or a bad heart, a strong heart is necessary. Right now there are a lot of things that Lea wants to regain. That desire is connected to the strength of his heart. (Famitsu, May 2012)

Lea had many things he wanted to regain at the time he summoned his Keyblade. He wanted to see Roxas again. Subconsciously, he wanted Xion back. And the third was Isa.

—Why did Lea visit Disney Castle when he should have been looking for his friend? Nomura: To search for his friend he needed the power to move between worlds, and there is no way to do that other than become a Keyblade Wielder. At the time, wanting to be made a Keyblade Wielder, Lea saw a message recorded by Ansem the Wise in the past and, knowing it was dangerous, used the Corridors of Darkness once more to go talk with King Mickey and the others. That’s why after Maleficent left he was asking at the Mysterious Tower. (KH3D Ultimania, May 2012)

Back in KH2, Axel gave up on the goal of physically bringing Roxas back, because that would mean turning Sora into a Heartless. And Lea did not even remember Xion. The reason he wanted to be a wielder in the first place was specifically to find Isa, who was missing. To look for him, he needed the power to travel between worlds, and he didn't want to rely on the Corridors of Darkness.

— Lea (Axel) ended up playing an unexpected role. I was wondering what was running through your mind when you thought to make him a Keyblade wielder. Nomura: I figured since he had returned to being human, he wouldn’t have much luck bringing back the people he wanted without some sort of power. Throwing his chakrams doesn’t really count. (Laughs.) (Famitsu, May 2012)

Obviously Lea's Keyblade wasn't necessary for Roxas or Xion's return, which was more related to their connection to Sora. There was only one character that Lea (and only Lea) had the power to bring back. I think Isa's redemption was supposed to be a lot more in-depth than his sudden 180 in KH3. Personally, I think Lea was supposed to dive into his heart and free him from the darkness. Saix/Isa wasn't as popular as Roxas and Xion, so instead, they just decided that as long as Saix helped bring them back, no one would care that he didn't get an actual redemption/rescue.

I largely agree. Roxas is my favorite character of the series, with Xion being in my top five. As much as I love them, I would have been okay if they were not revived. Because like you, now I want to see their lives continue and for them to be playable, and from the looks of things that isn't happening any time soon. When they were absorbed by Sora they served a purpose. But bringing them back and just leaving them on the sidelines sucks.

Another thing is the Axel/Lea factor. I loved Axel for his complex nature, but cannot stand Lea. If not for the RAX reunion I would barely tolerate him. My biggest fear is Roxas and Xion just end up like Lea. Lea is a prime example of what happens when you are too popular.

I've always been conflicted on them returning and that extends to Axel/Lea as well. But I'll say this, Roxas and Xion playing backseat to Isa leaves a sour taste in my mouth, so if they are involved in phase 2 I hope they are used more then things like that.

Sorry I missed you, I posted something else before catching this, my bad. But on the topic, Isa being Lea's goal in KH3 is debatable. There is no real buildup that he needs to be rescued, unless you count that stare down between him and Lea, but if so then Xigbar needs to be saved too. Even with Roxas and Xion's shaky status of being saved or remaining gone they were at least featured in Blank Points, Re:Coded, and DDD teasing the idea. Isa is not, and how heavily he's "possessed" is also debatable given he seems to have his memories and free will making him closer to Xigbar and less of a Terranort/Riku situation.

Granted I'm bias and didn't have much sympathy for Isa/Saix going into KH3, and just preferred him as a villain. But if he was suppose to be Lea's goal then they did a lousy job showcasing that going into KH3. I was interested in what Lea and Isa's backstory was going to be for sure, but that didn't translate to me wanting to save Isa, especially over Roxas and Xion.

Edit: Also can someone please help me with multi-quoting? I just realized this is separate from my earlier post.

These answers make me very excited for the future since I desperately want "many stories" about Isa and Lea, but at the same time I mourn the writing of Lea, and Lea & Kairi's friendship... Had Roxas and Xion not been revived, it could have been so much better. I'm so glad that awful Keyblade is broken for good. I hope Roxas and Xion (and Namine) get a restful vacation for the rest of their lives while we focus on the rest of the cast.

I'm also desperate for more Riku & Kairi content, so I can't wait to know more about that KH2 Keyblade thing.

Thank you for this masterpost!

Yeah after KH3D and Lea getting a keyblade, I kind of lost interest in him. The only things in KH3 that I really liked him for were his friendship with Kairi (after what he did in KH2/connection to Xion) and the reunion with Roxas/Xion. All of his boasting how popular he was and whatnot didn't really help his character. When he was this cunning and sneaky agent from CoM-KH2, he really stood out. They're kind of just relying on what was already established for his popularity and not doing anything more with his character.

I will be so disappointed if Roxas and Xion don't get used better and get their own story arcs. Of course, it seems like that is exactly what will happen - at least more so for Xion. I wouldn't mind if they write off Xion and say that she lost the ability to wield a keyblade and now resides with the Twilight Town gang. Roxas might be harder to write off - it might be cool for him to actually say he doesn't want to be involved in all of this anymore and the others accept his choice, leaving him to a normal life.

It's all good. I'm biased in the other direction because, while I loved the sea-salt trio, I wanted to see the Lea and Isa duo get more development. Those two are my favorite characters and I'm a huge Isa fan. In KH3, the sea-salt trio got all the love, and Isa took a huge backseat, which made me very salty.

There is no real buildup that he needs to be rescued, unless you count that stare down between him and Lea, but if so then Xigbar needs to be saved too. Even with Roxas and Xion's shaky status of being saved or remaining gone they were at least featured in Blank Points, Re:Coded, and DDD teasing the idea. Isa is not, and how heavily he's "possessed" is also debatable given he seems to have his memories and free will making him closer to Xigbar and less of a Terranort/Riku situation.

I can totally see where you're coming from, but I think Saix having free will was a red herring. In 358/2 Days, all we knew was that Saix's personality completely changed from the time they were kids. Axel was very hurt by this, but he really didn't understand why.

Xemnas: Our experiments creating Heartless were attempts to control the mind and convince it to renounce its sense of self.

This line from Xemnas in KHDDD always what made me think that Isa was one of the test subjects during the experiments. The goal was to control the mind to renounce its sense of self. Xehanort needed to create empty vessels, so he needed the subject to have no sense of self-awareness or identity. And Saix's scar was over his third eye, which is the mind's eye. The third eye relates to awareness and consciousness. This was why Saix could not see Xion. IMO, Isa's true consciousness was obliterated, and his personality was replaced with Xehanort's. Xemnas retained Terra's memories, and I think Saix also retained Isa's memories. But I always saw Isa's situation as being closer to Terra's than Xigbar's. I think if he had received the proper backstory, the fandom's perception of him would have been more sympathetic.

Yeah cause there's no E3 this year.
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When I read that it won't be at E3 I honestly took it as Nomura being cheeky because E3 is cancelled this year lmao

This still confuses me. Is Lea's keyblade supposed to be really broken? Xemnas broke it but Lea could summon it again shortly after in that scene when everyone use their keyblades to contain Kingdom Hearts while Sora goes through Xehanort's portal. Lea also wields it in the aerial fight against the replicas in ReMind. These events happened after Xemnas broke it and the keyblade looked intact. Am I missing something?

Updated the OP with a ton of info. I think that's pretty much it for the Q&A.

Popular characters are not entitled to continued involvement in future titles. When you're keeping someone around just for positive reception, you merely create more bloat and thereby rob more important but less popular characters of the time and development they need.

Axel was originally going to be killed off by Roxas's hands in KH2's prologue, but they kept him around because he was too well liked. Which is fine for a while, but it's become very clear that he has vastly overstayed his welcome and become a joke of a character. Now that we know Roxas and Xion were only brought back by fan demand, they too run the risk of following in Axel's footsteps, and also force other characters are to compete with them for screentime when they shouldn't have to.

Axel in general is also a problematic character as he has never had to answer for his wrongdoings and is instead rewarded for it. It doesn't serve his character of being friends with two small children to acknowledge that he murdered two men in cold blood. He bore equal responsibility in his fallout with Saix, whose accusations that Axel had replaced him and Subject X with Roxas and Xion were completely fair. Instead they insist that Axel really did care for them and Saix was just being unreasonable, so not only does Axel totally deserve to go on a new adventure to find someone he definitely cares about, but he also gets to drag the kiddos along with them to make sure they have something to do in this new phase. That's "having your cake and eating it too."

And again, we've heard from multiple sources that Roxas and Xion were originally not going to be revived in KH3 and it was a last minute decision influenced by fan outcry that cemented it. Insisting that it was foreshadowed years ago is blatantly false and a misinterpreting of intentions.


I did say to take that info with a grain of salt since we're basing it entirely off of impressions, and it's not like the devs are waiting for people to write things down. It's very possible some of the info is not entirely accurate, but we're only able to cross-reference so much.

Damn my pre-KH3 theories of Roxas Xion and Namine not coming back would've been right if Nomura hadn't listened to the fans

This adds up with some statements Nomura made in the KH 2 FM+ and Days Ultimania regarding those characters and their appearances in Blank Points, Re: Coded and DDD were indeed ambiguous enough that outright complete revival as their own persons was only one of several possible solutions.
The fans' voices about Roxas started way back directly after KH 2 and about Xion certainly after Days and I do think Nomura was somewhat surprised how popular these characters became, so it isn't clear when exactly Nomura changed his mind nor what his original intended solution was for them.

That being said though I do wonder if there are even more characters which were brought back in KH 3 that weren't intended to be in the original draft.
Isn't it also in KH III that when Yen Sid speaks of those needing to be saved he only ever speaks of TAV?
When I consider the fact that out of the handheld trilogy of Days, Coded and BBS the last one was the only one initially planned after KH 2 I get the vibe that the originally planned story got bloated out a bit more in general with several padding elements added during the long hiatus due to the fact that there was the aim to have a KH game every year and Nomura seems to be just incapable of conceiving a KH game that isn't somehow tied into the main story.

I wish Roxas and Xion had been retired. Not so much being dead but like making their stories pretty final. A fresh start without their past memories. A chance to live a normal life in Twilight Town. No more Keyblades for them. Something.

But like Sign has said, now we have to worry about them competing for screen time with other characters.

I also feel the same way about TAV, actually, but to a lesser degree in that I think they should be transitioned to support. And I LOVE TAV. I just feel like if the series isn't going to have as many spin-off titles as it did in the past, then the developers need to be willing to let these characters rest and tie off their storylines or be willing to minimize their roles.

Roxas and Xion would have been so easy to close out. Lea would have too if they didn't decide to do the Subject X plot. And in the end it wasn't even worth it because Fujiwara has passed and QF is a piece of shit.

I hope with this new saga, Nomura is finally prepared to let some characters rest. Or give us some spin-off games.

Sad as it is I feel like Roxas and Xion should've stayed gone. They served their purpose and I was someone who screamed when Roxas reappeared in KH3. Now I feel like those two are just going to be dragged along by Lea/Isa as they search for Subject X/Skuld. KH3 already did a poor job with giving them little to no dialogue or character interactions we don't need to add more cast members onto the new arc which is already bloated.

Being enthusiastic to see these characters again and being happy that they finally got their happy ending is one thing and it certainly does induce fuzzy feelings among those who like them.

Yet using them effectively is an entire other can of worms and while in theory each character could get a new story arc either personal or connected to the overarching bigger plot in this new saga the track record of the KH series dealing with a big cast so far isn't exactly good.
Maybe putting indeed some of them "to rest" for a while and re-introduce them later in a rotating system that doesn't require them all at once would be a feasible solution.

Another issue is Nomura's habit to constantly introduce evermore new characters. On one hand it is understandable that one wants to expand the fictional universe but on the other you also need to flesh those characters out and make them feel like an acting and living part of said universe and not just a plot device or living macguffin that happens to have a humanoid form.

If I'm honest the KHverse by now comes over to me like a big sandbox Nomura throws evermore unrefined stuff into while declining to fully flesh out the parts that are already there.

Nomura's persistent choice of answering nearly every question in the Q&A, down to old still KH2 loose ends, still with "yes, we'll explain later" I think perfectly demonstrates exactly what you are saying lol

Like I said, this is the shounen anime trap. It's not just a KH thing. Every single series I've experienced in this genre seems to think it's a positive to bloat their cast more and more over time. Forgetting old characters, introducing new ones, then replacing them in turn with still more newbies. Why, I don't know, but at least others have the excuse of needing to meet weekly publications, and it can be easier to throw in new people I guess.

To ignore our established cast going forward would make me even less invested in any future characters, for that would signal to us that they, too, could eventually be shuffled aside before their full potentials are realized. And if I expect the payoff to be lacking based on precedent, how can I care?

I do not know how to Re:Coded, but in DDD, their return was obvious. Just say that you don't like this character for some personal reasons. What did Axel do wrong besides killing a bad guy (if not worse than himself). Yes, he kidnapped Kairi and wanted to turn Sora into heartless. But he redeemed himself by sacrificing himself to save Sora, and then when he returned, he quite deservedly joined Sora and the others. Do not forget that Riku also did not apologize to Roxas in any way and caused him suffering (Let Ansem the wise be more to blame for this). I've always thought that SRK, TAV, RAX trio are the main characters of KH, so what's wrong if the story unfolds around them.


In any case, it will be fine if they want to help a friend in finding a girl. ?‍♀️ And fans of the sea salt family (Roxas, Xion and two surrogate fathers in the person of Lea and Isa) will be glad to see this quartet in action.

I agree with you that Axel gets away with a lot of things, and not just killing Vexen and Zexion. He's manipulated, lied to, and threatened other characters as well for his own agendas. And many of those were his own friends too. And it annoys me that we don't address these things and call him out on it because it robs him of story, growth, and dealing with the long term consequences of his actions. Not even onscreen apologies to any of them, except maybe Sora? It's one of the main reasons I didn't agree with making him a immediate Guardian of Light, at least not without him earning it.

However I'm going to defend him on one of these things. And that is the fallout with Saix. Saix was a sociopath who's idea of friendship was for Axel to not have a social life outside of him and to let his two new friends kill one another for the Organization, and that's not even getting into all the psychological abuse he dished out to one of said friends. If I was to criticize Axel for anything with the Saix relationship it's that he didn't stand up to him more, and that it took him forever to finally end it when the damage had already been done. How could anyone salvage a friendship with someone as messed up as Saix?

Apparently Nomura must have thought the same thing because he had to retool the character in KH3 and made Subject X to gaslight everyone into thinking "See? Saix wasn't that bad after all. He was trying to save his girl, just like Riku in KH1 with Kairi. Axel is equally to blame for leaving his toxic friendship." And the sick thing is it's working. Saix is KH's Severus Snape.

I hope I didn't come across as attacking you Sign. If so I apologize, but I wanted to address the Axel/Saix thing.

Given that he introduced Subject X into their plot, I don't think he will leave Isa in the back seat.

You're good, no worries :)

I'm not saying that Saix didn't have his own share of issues and deserved blame, but more often than not, his conflict with Axel is presented as a completely one-sided affair rather than two people who equally contributed to the fallout. Not only that, but what good he did do tends to be stubbornly downplayed or even flat out ignored in order to place emphasis on him as the one true evildoer and Axel one of his many victims.

Honestly, they're both shitty people, but it's the double-standards that rile me up lol

Yup, back in the day when BBS was still fresh I used to take most of these Q&A of Nomura from Famitsu magazines and Ultimanias to craft theories and speculate on what he had planned for the future story beats as well as character arcs and relationships.

And yet the lackluster delivery of KH III on these parts "cured" me of that since it showed that Nomura is focused more on what looks and sounds flashy as well as integrating dozens of twists just for the sake of having them and making things "surprising".
Coherency and naturally flowing storytelling involving both the universe and the characters supposed to be living in it, what's that?



Some manga and/or anime do get the whole big cast of central characters and hundreds of support characters done well though with at least the dozen or so major characters being decently developed.
But manga or a novel are a different medium with much more room to flesh out stuff compared to the confines of a video game. The KH novels also tend to focus more on character interactions and relationships and are arguably levels above the games in quality in these areas.

As someone who has an own fictional universe since grade school I can completely understand authors and creative minds wanting to expand their universes by introducing more and more characters, locations, abilities et cetera and I guess that is one of the "whys", yet of course the more a work expands, the more details need to be kept in mind including the already existing characters.

To balance this is certainly not an easy feat and the KH series so far sadly does have a negative track record although one has to give credit to them that they at least tried to address this problem.
In KH II almost all story and character interactions concerning Riku, Naminé, DiZ/Ansem the Wise were almost completely delegated to be behind-the-scenes events that didn't get featured at all.
BBS had three separate storylines to give each character room but since it was more about Xehanort's plan than them there wasn't much interaction between them at all.
In DDD and KH III there was at least the attempt to show what the other characters were up to even if it were short cutscenes that included more exposition about the bloated series' lore than actual character building and interactions.
It's gotten better than to KH II times but certainly not to a degree that could be described as satisfying.

I remember Yoshihiro Togashi solving this in his most successful work Hunter X Hunter by dedicating each story arc to a certain subset of characters.
Beyond the very first and the third story arc the four main characters haven't yet met again as a group of four, mainly being split into two duos doing their own thing while keeping loosely in contact with the others.
The supporting characters switch around every story arc and furthermore rotate between these two duos of main characters. They get their development and times to shine by interacting with them in different forms and situations.
Sometimes supporting characters disappear for two or three arcs to make room for some new characters but unless they are confirmed dead there's always a chance for them to reappear later.
There is a dynamic in place that makes the HxH world seem "alive", sometimes a character cannot meet up with or help the main characters at all because they're busy with their own obligations and duties unrelated to the current predicaments of the main cast, something almost impossible to expect in KH because somehow it seems everything has to revolve around Sora.

Ignoring the established extended cast wouldn't be something I would be very on board with but like Sign, Spockanort and others I too see the issue with the limited available screentime around, especially if one also wants to include the Disney elements properly.
So far as shown with KH III Nomura & co. don't seem to have a handle on how to effectively deal with a bigger cast of central characters despite wanting to have them, so there needs to be a better solution that works.
In order to not scratch characters completely putting only a few of them into the spotlight at the same time would be the most effective approach.
Frankly I'd rather have four characters getting effective screentime while four others sit on the "bench" having pause for a while instead of having all eight present but them being only window/background dressing, plot devices, cannon fodder or exposition dumps.

---
Edit:
On the Axel-Saix thingy I struggle right now to remember anything remotely "good" Saix did during the timeframe of Days/CoM and KH II and he always came over to me as much more of an outright villain during these times, as in terms of cruelty he was pretty much up on the same level as Larxene, Xaldin and Xemnas himself.
Axel during CoM at least was on nearly the same level though and I think it was confirmed somewhere that the main reason he mellowed out so much over time and regained somewhat of a moral compass was because of his constant close exposure to Roxas and by extension Sora.
KH III was a mixed bag I must say and Isa's decision to atone and redeem himself was stated multiple times but imho not really shown very well which is why to several parts of the audience it might seem like it came out of nowhere with not much foundation laid for it (the same could be said for Ienzo, Even, Aeleus and Dilan too though).
Both Riku and Ansem the Wise had the foundation for their redemption and atonement laid out beforehand so it was somewhat easier to swallow and accept.

I'll agree with you fully on both Axel and Saix as shitty due to their actions. Honestly had Axel remained his CoM persona they would be perfect for one another...and probably backstab each other at some point.

You know, considering what Vexen and Zexion were like, this death is well deserved. Bad guys kill bad guys. Of course, he did a disgusting thing with the Riku replica, but I think he redeemed himself to some extent through Xion. Realizing that replicas are living beings. Yes, he is selfish, but there is nothing wrong with the fact that he wants to save his loved ones. One of whom wants to literally end his life. Even if he doesn't do it in the right way. For me, Axel is a "traumatized child" at heart, who, in addition to the fact that he did not experience emotions, was and grew up in a very shitty environment. And then people appeared in his life who helped him get out of this shit. However, they also left. The guy held on to them like a life raft. In any case, Axel, compared to all the other members of the organization, is far from the worst guy. I'm silent about his FF analogue Reno, which threw the damn stove on civilians.

Given that KH4 starts a new arc, there is a chance of spin-off.

Sure, I didn’t say none. I just said less. This generation is way more costly and time-intensive to develop for, so I think we are going to see way less spin off titles in the future

Quoting you again because we've gotten some more impressions with added context :)

— In KH3, Xemnas breaks Lea's Keyblade and says "Your Keyblade is no more," yet Lea continues to use it regardless. Nomura: The nuance is that even if Lea summons his Keyblade again and insists on fighting Xemnas with it, he'll just continue to break it. It's impossible for Xemnas to get rid of it for good.

There are some other stuff too, like a sales update for KH3 (6.7 million as of September 2021). I'm still making edits so y'all just peruse at your leisure.

When the team sent Nomura the video of the forest, he thought, "Why are you sending me live-action footage?"

This is hilarious. Just goes to show how vast graphic improvements can start to look closely to real life


Thanks for all the hard work

Damn... regarding some the updates to front post:

I was hoping the "two scalas" thing was just because there was a different section of the same scala world... but yeah, I guess there really is two different scala worlds? It was pretty well hinted based on how different they look, but goddamn... can't just be scala at an earlier point in time huh, would be too easy.

Makes me wonder if the real Scala had been abandoned/lost a while before the start of Dark Road, and the Scala that Young Xehanort is in is some kind of cruel imitation... Odin is already suspicious, and all the keyblade wielders seem to be dying/losing to darkness pretty quick. Interesting that this would mean Xehanort came from old/real scala, and then is hidden away, and then comes to new/fake scala... I am pretty hyped to finally get this story explained. (Or explained-ish).

They are probably just the different islands. At least I hope so...

Was torn between proceeding with Verum Rex or KH4 for the next title, but decided on KH4 because it'd be difficult to develop two big console games at the same time, and there were many fans who were worried about Sora.

Good to know a Verum Rex game isn’t completely off the table. In fact, I’d be perfectly fine with this being the “side game” as opposed to having sub-games between number-titled installments.

My worry with spin-off games is that characters are "trapped" in their groups. TAV will always be together and Lea/Roxas/Xion (and now Isa) will always be together. If they do spin-off games or even storylines shown in KH4, I want to see a mix of characters... mostly because I want Roxas and Xion to do their own thing or hang out with other people (and move away from Lea).

I think it's easy to move characters into supporting roles. I mean Yen Sid sat down and did nothing for like 10 years, knowing full well all hell was breaking loose. They can have Terra be busy protecting the Land of Departure. Xion and Roxas can CHOOSE to be normal people and give up the keyblade life - which I think would be a great way to send them off. Their entire lives they had to make choices that hurt themselves or ones they love and FINALLY they can choose to live life the way they want. It would be great to see Sora and the others accept their retirement and leave them in peace in Twilight Town. Of course, they can have a surprise cameo later in the series when Sora needs backup.

Unfortunately, we're going to get more Lea/Isa (or maybe they can black box this storyline). I think the only characters in the cast that should be used going forward are: Sora, Riku, Kairi, Aqua, Ven, Namine, Mickey, Donald and Goofy. I would replace Ienzo with Namine as the exposition mouthpiece. Aqua can act as the most experienced and leader of them all, Riku can act as her second in command. This creates conflict between Sora and Ven - because Sora may choose to listen to Riku instead of Aqua and Ven chooses Aqua over Sora/Riku. Mickey can do his vanishing act until we need him again to reveal some grand secret. Kairi can be the voice of reason amongst the conflicting Sora/Ven - maybe create even more drama if Kairi sides with Ven instead of Sora.

EDIT: Oh and I purposefully wrote out Roxas and Xion because they are visually clones of Ven and Kairi. It just makes sense to get rid of the clones... even though I love them more than Ven or Kairi.

— How did Isa receive the scar on his forehead? Why is it a Recusant's Sigil? Nomura: Good question. There's a story with Lea and Isa and the girl they were trying to rescue. Stay tuned for the future.

This was one of my questions, so I'm glad Nomura-senpai liked it, LOL. I am pleasantly surprised that we are finally going to learn how Isa got the scar. After the Dark Seeker Saga ended, I didn’t think stuff like Lea and Isa's backstory or the Recusant's Sigil would be touched on in any meaningful way. I was honestly very disappointed by that. Without a dark and tragic backstory, Lea and Isa just feel so...flat and incomplete as characters.

It’s not too late to make Isa and Lea test subjects. There was a lot of potential for that idea, and I still think it would have been the most interesting route to take. The experiments on Subject X had to do with memory, but the experiments on the darkness of the heart and mind control are still fair game. Ever since vanilla KH2, I had the impression that that Axel was a former test subject. And BBS and Days convinced me that Isa was one, too. My intuition tells me that Nomura's original idea was to make them both former test subjects, but that backstory was never depicted due to BBSV2 being cancelled. Now is the chance to make things right, Nomura.

I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high, though, and risk being disappointed again. Given how bad the story has been lately, Lea and Isa's backstory will probably be really stupid. Like, Isa and Lea began to suspect that maybe "X" never really existed. Isa gave himself the scar to remember her. And Lea couldn't stop crying after she vanished, and he gave himself the tear marks. ?

Reads Q&A's

There's no way Nomura wanted to be there.

So ignoring story stuff for second funnily enough despite them being visually clones.. I actually think in terms of gameplay at least there's a lot more unique potential for Xion and Roxas than Ven and Kairi. Ven is just Fast Boi who happens to hold his keyblade in a reverse grip and Kairi is.. Im not really sure how to describe the fighting style she got in RE:Mind it was fun though. But like with Roxas you have the constant duel wield gimmick built in. Xion was shown in 3 to still be able to copy powers via her well copying Saix's so she could act as something of a blue mage type, where you'd get only a base keyblade or two but instead of getting more keyblades and transformations and forms you'd get more weapons and powers from her friends and foes. Though obviously from a development standpoint that one is a LOT more work to do and.. is a bit more Devil May Cry or Bayonetta than Kingdom Hearts in concept. But yeah in terms of spin offs or if KH 4 does something where maybe each world on the KH side of the wall between Quadratum and whatever worlds surround it and the classic Disney + Original worlds has a different keyblade wielder as your playable character I would be much more interested in PLAYING a Roxas or Xion World (plus I think if they do Coco Xion is pretty much the absolute perfect character to interact with the themes of that movie)

Storywise Ven is obviously going to be forefront going forward though due to all the UX stuff coming in. Kairi is Kairi and I can't truly believe she'll be a proper main character treated as an equal in her trio until it actually you know happens, it's just burnt too many times there.

The team should definitely take another look at the Switch and not write it off
from the accounts, this is an ideal platform for spin-off

Making a future side-game that is Switch friendly (aka MoM) is one thing, making a spin off exclusively meant for Switch is a horrible idea. I think they'll go for the PS/Xbox/PC multiplatforms to avoid the drama that happened during the BbS days, with the clear exception of mobile titles.

That being said, if they want to branch out the storyline outside of the main games, in a sense they create an isolated subseries for whichever Nintendo platform with zero impact to the other titles, which is higly unlikely, then i guess that'll be fine for most people.

He never does. XD also I feel like instead of him actually bothering to answer, he was just mentally taking notes on what he needs to revisit in the future.

Yep, Nomura's a more shy guy who doesn't like big live events with lots of people around him at all.
We're somewhat similar in that vein as I too don't feel comfortable in too big of a crowd.
Being with four to six people is ok but more tends to stress me out quickly.

I actually like the idea that Nomura looks at fan questions and goes "Damn, they still care about that particular part of the story I never bothered to develop any deeper." or "Damn, I totally forgot about this still open story thread, must make a note to address this somewhere."
It's on one hand hilarious and on the other a bit sad to consider that the great story weaver loses oversight of his own created universe.

I personally don't put that much stock into the Vexen/Zexion deaths like most do. It's not like they were angels. I only take note of it for how brutal they are, especially in the case of Vexen who's begging for his life. It was a cold blooded murder that can't be ignored. But if the roles were reversed they would have done the same to Axel. Honestly the only real victim I saw in those was the Riku Replica. But I do feel they missed a opportunity to show how much Axel/Lea had changed since CoM by trying to at least address it and apologize to Ienzo and Even. Not really for their sake, but for Lea who isn't the Assassin anymore. Of course Axel's not the worst guy in the Organization, but he made plenty of mistakes in it, and they should use those to flesh out his character more.

I don't usually gun for the Switch since it is an inferior piece of hardware and I want KH to flourish at its best.

But Lost-Masters being on Unreal Engine and the KH3 environments scaling down to suit Androids / iPhones is insulting to what everything else could have been. They could have gotten every KH game to work natively with it instead of the dreadful, non-worldwide, cloud versions.

Yeah, honestly Missing-Link really shows their asses in regards to their laziness in not making the games native on Switch. Up until yesterday I didn’t think KH3 was possible.

I get not wanting to put staff on a project like that when they are busy with another game, but hire an outside firm to do the port? I get they’ve been burned on a few occasions, but sometimes you just can’t make everything in-house. They have to have a good relationship with a competent company capable of scaling down, compressing, and porting games in a way where they run without compromising anything beyond maybe 60fps lol

Though, to be fair, this problem wouldn’t exist to begin with is Nintendo could get a proper revision out there back when it was feasible to do so. At this point we’ll just be waiting for the Switch 2.

Can't wait to see the convoluted reason how Riku gives Kairi her keyblade lol

— Where did Riku get the Keyblade he gave to Kairi in KH2? Nomura: If you're asking about that... I'll follow up on it. If I don't, then we'd just be throwing that all away.

Nomura's response leads me to believe that he did originally have an explanation for Riku giving Kairi her Keyblade, but just never got a chance to show it. Here is my theory on what the explanation was going to be:

Nomura: The transfer of the Keyblade from Roxas to Riku at the skyscraper is related to Xion. Although it is the origin of the name “Xion,” the flower Aster Tataricus also means “forget-me-not” and “recollection.” And Riku received that, “to pass away memories.” When Riku gets the Keyblade, such meanings are contained in a flashback carried out by Xion. (358/2 Days Ultimania, May 2009)

So, in Japanese, "Oblivion" is called 過ぎ去りし思い出 which translates to "Passing Memories". Roxas threw that Keyblade to Riku during their fight, and that passed the memories of Xion's life from Roxas to him.

Xemnas: Take steps? How can you not see how perfect this is? Xion is marching right into the arms of destiny. The only steps we need take are two: watch...and wait.

Xion marched right into the arms of destiny. Kairi's Keyblade is called "Destiny's Embrace". Kairi's ability to wield is intimately connected to the "parallel life" she lived as Xion. That is why Riku had to be the one to first summon Kairi's Keyblade for her. He was passing those memories on to their rightful owner, Kairi. And Destiny's Embrace has a flower motif, one of the flowers is even star-shaped like a forget-me-not.

Looking forward to playing Missing Link since it's actually an ARPG like the main series. Looks like the devs have been making steady progress on all of their projects. Good to see.

Yeah...an effect signifying you're in the data world. Nomura you premiered canon dialogue in a concert. Gave a thorough dissertation on the rules of time travel and went out of your way almost 20 years later to explain why Mickey was shirtless in KH1. You don't get to say there's no deeper meaning lol


Little confused why this was a question. He didn't when he was young because Terra wasn't born yet?

You'll also find out why Xehanort's hair became the way it did.

The dark mysteries of male pattern baldness.


Oh Nomura, I don't believe that for a second :)

I wish people were more hyped about this. a multiplayer action KH game. That's huge!

It's a mobile game though. If it's available on consoles too - then that would be nice.

It looks like there will be disney worlds from KH3, I'm worried it's literally going to be KH3's worlds in it's entirety - no new locations.

On the topic of Xehanort, the mysteries surrounding him will be revealed in the final chapter of DR. You'll also find out why Xehanort's hair became the way it did.

I'm actually really intrigued by this. In Dark Road, Young Xehanort changed his hairstyle. After possessing Terra, Xehanort/Xemnas also styled his hair in this way. Also, despite having a different hairstyle in BBS, Saix chose to grow out his hair and style it in a similar way. I wonder if it was for the same reason.

I actually don’t care about them reusing the KH3 worlds. What really bothers me: if they are already reusing the same worlds, Why do they not release the game on consoles? Why does it have to be a mobile game?

I really wouldn’t mind if it was copy paste KH3’s worlds with new gameplay mechanics

I'd just love a new location or two like in Corona, would be cool going to the Snuggly Duckling

or Al's Toy Barn in Toy Box

Because it's easier to produce than an underwhelming new gameplay mechanic for home consoles, and it'll probably give more money to SE with the whole gatcha thing than doing a single payment game for consoles. As far as I know, mobile games are huge in the east. Either way, I won't discard the possibility of the game, with similar gatcha mechanics, making it into home consoles as time goes by.

TBH, I'm more hyped about Missing Link than KH4. The reason is this:

[LIST] [*]Set during a blank time period between UX and DR [*]A story that connects all of the mysteries up to now [*]Key words: Multiple Scalas, Founder Ephemer, Secret Society of Keyblade Wielders. Everything is connected. [/LIST]

As a mobile game, it doesn't have to follow main series conventions, which means it has more liberty to focus on the past "blank periods" of the older Saga. The fact that the game is called "Missing Link" makes me very hopeful that Nomura is going to revisit some of the concepts from Birth by Sleep Volume II (which was the game teased during the "Blank Points" secret ending). BBSV2 was meant to be KH0.5. We only ever got 0.2, but we never got the missing 0.3. It is literally the missing link of the series. If Nomura is going to answer mysteries such as why Riku passed Kairi's Keyblade on to her, I expect it to happen in Missing Link.

On top of that, it looks like a lot of fun. It is 3D and action-oriented, which is a huge upgrade from Union X. I like how the "medals" look like Super Smash Bros. trophies. Also, Missing Link looks more "canon" to me. This may be controversial, but I kinda wish Nomura had just made Verum Rex instead of KH4. KH4 looks nothing like a KH game. It's just wish fulfillment for Nomura to recreate Versus XIII. Any KH lore appears to be an afterthought.

I mean, it was always a visual indication of their relation to Xehanort.

I’m sure now it’ll mean it is a visual connection to Darkness.

I'm just sick of mobile games & hate that they replaced proper handheld entries. Come on Square, make a new game on Switch that isn't rhythm or cloud!

Yeah, all those physical traits have to be related somehow. The hairstyle, the pointy ears, the yellow eyes. Maybe it's all related to how the Master of Masters looks.

— Are Nobody emblems natural? Do humanoid Nobodies have them? Nomura: Is this something you all care about? (laughs)

— When did Namine and Ansem meet? Nomura: It wasn't, but I didn't show it because I thought people would be able to figure out what happened on their own.

Nomura Translation: What stupid fucking questions

Sleep-deprived Nomura is just shooting the shit and I'm loving it...Looking forward to more interviews with this madman.

I think it's broader than that:






Darken skin & yellow eyes are basically a visual shorthand that tells audiences "hey, this is a bad guy!" There's enough prior examples of it happening in Disney media that they likely influenced (if subconsiously) Nomura's designs for the heartless. & then the heartless designs influence Ansem's design, which in turn influenced every other Xehanort off-shoot.

I don't even know what Nomura is trying to say here.

Made another batch of updates thanks to Famitsu and Gamer JP's recaps. Really hope this will be the last time lol I don't want to edit this thing again

Surprised this was even asked, like Nomura, I thought it was pretty obvious. Some of these questions picked could have gone to much better ones

I feel like whoever went through the list picked these out intentionally to waste time.

That explains the level design and the platformer-esque style of Kingdom Hearts.

We knew Nomura started working on KH after FF8, but he'd been vague about what that actually meant (after he completed his work on FF8? after the game released?) so it's nice to finally have the answer and pinpoint an exact year.

— When did Namine and Ansem meet? — Why did Riku's hair get cut in KH3D? — Master Xehanort hijacked Terra's body...why didn't he do anything about it while he was still young?

Barring the fact that some of the questions were, unfortunately, just plain pointless to ask, my issue is actually towards the staff who actually went through these questions and chose them. I pretty sure there was hundreds upon hundreds of questions that were submitted for the event. Were these the ones they thought were good? Really?

(I swear that Ansem question was already answered way back when in the interview or Ultimania)

My goodness. Did they not review the questions before choosing to answer them? Rhetorical because obviously not. Asking questions like how did Ansem and Namine meet when that was answered back in the KH2 Ultimania. That couldn't have been a Japanese question (I'd be disappointed if it was; the only exception is if the person just started the series) because the Ultimania's are only released in Japan.

Straight from the Scenarios mysteries of the KH2 Ultimania in 2006, which you can find all the interviews on KHI:

---Did Namine meet DiZ after Sora's story in KH:COM?
Nomura: Yes, they contacted each other between Sora and Riku's stories. Namine coorperated with DiZ not just because she's against the Organization but also because she wanted to protect Sora. She promised to restore Sora's memories so she needed to stay beside him. As stated in Ansem's Other Report #10, DiZ thought it's dangerous to leave Sora in Castle Oblivion, and in order to protect Sora, Namine needed DiZ.

A more useful question, which I submitted, is "when will KH have Japanese audio in the overseas version?" KH is the only Square game that doesn't have JP audio in the overseas release. Even Dragon Quest has it. It's embarrassing. Yes, it's a question that's been asked before and answered, but we need to keep the demand going. Yes, I could just watch a Japanese walkthrough on YouTube (which I already do), but considering they keep catering to casuals who don't follow the story by making recap videos/journals time and time again (DDD/3/the recap videos on YouTube before 3) when you can watch a walkthrough of the series before each new game, this would at least be fair.

While I do believe he struggled with the scenario to the very end, he was the one who put the seed of their return way earlier than KH3, at the very least for Roxas. Even if Blank Points may have not indicated that, in DDD Sora literally tells Roxas that he deserves to be his own person, and that game was released 7 years before KH3. It would have made no sense not to bring him back after those BbS and DDD scenes. Another proof that DDD was most probably made of undeveloped ideas he had for KH3 that he didn't matured enough.

The Namine/DiZ question is pretty random. Out of all the questions you could ask about Namine that's the one that gets attention? Not how she got her name, how she was found by the Organization, the limits of her powers, or even why she wears a tablecloth as clothing.

I wish I had submitted some questions. I would have asked why didn't Marluxia start remembering his past the first time Sora defeated him in CoM as opposed to KH3? Is it because he didn't have Mecha Strelitzia with him? Yeah I'm calling that thing Mecha Strelitzia.

I was so absorbed in my post that I forgot to mention this:

No wonder Lea/Axel looked kind of sad-ish while keeping up a smile in the anniversary artwork. I wondered how Nomura felt due to FujiKei's passing, especially since he personally chose FujiKei for the red hair roles of his characters.

Hikaru Utada is in charge Nomura: Always.

Correct answer.

Irino: "He's the one who will always play the leading role."

:sneaky:

My nephew, reading me the Ultimania for KH9 in 50 years: "He's still saying to please wait patiently."

Before KH3, I never thought Roxas would come back, and here is how I interpreted that scene. In KH3D, Sora didn't know that he had Ventus's heart inside of him. All he knew was that Roxas felt different than him somehow. He didn't know why, he just sensed that Roxas had his own feelings that were distinct from his own. So, he told Roxas that he was his own person.

Sometime before the beginning of KH3, Sora should have found out the truth about Ventus's heart. The fact that there was a separate heart inside of him would have explained why Roxas never truly felt like he was a part of Sora. He had his own heart all along. And so, in KH3, Sora's goal would be waking Ventus's heart up. Since Roxas's heart was Ventus's heart, there would have been no need for a separate "save Roxas" plotline. Roxas was simply an alter ego of Ventus.

Sora: “I was thinking about Roxas. He’s trapped here in my heart. But…he needs a body to be himself again.”

I couldn't help but notice while playing KH3 that the whole plot would have made a LOT more sense if Roxas and Ventus were treated as interchangeable. It just felt like it was intended to be that way, originally. Ventus was trapped in Sora's heart, and they didn't have any way of finding his body in Castle Oblivion without Aqua's help.

Riku: “No. Sora was dragged into the abyss during his exam. And I went in after him. So, I think if we find someone that was really close to Aqua, and they make the dive, they could reach her down there.”

If Ventus was revived, he could make the dive to rescue Aqua. So, they thought they could get him a Replica body. Sora would still have gone to Twilight Town and met up with Hayner, etc. The plot wouldn't have needed to change all that much, which always led me to believe that bringing Roxas back separately from Ventus was a very last minute decision.

Frankly, I think the story would have been far better if Roxas and Ventus had remained the same. Things would have been less convoluted, for sure. And Ventus, now with Roxas's memories, could have had a more meaningful reunion with Lea at Yen Sid's tower before the final battle. Although many fans loved the RAX reunion in KH3, I thought it was badly written. IMO, Roxas never truly understood Axel. He never understood why Axel lied to him, or how much pain Axel was in during 358/2 Days. Lea and Roxas/Ventus had a lot of things to discuss through before they were ready for a happy ending.

I think if Nomura had a really clear authorial intent as to what he was going to do with the "hurting" characters he would have delineated it from the start of that storyline and set up specific outcomes which in retrospect could be recognized as the most appropriate resolutions to their respective arcs. Instead he relegated it to a vaguely defined footnote in the very chapter that was positioned to contend with this narrative problem, hence why the most obvious reading of events is the one that most readily presents itself: if Sora is seen directly preaching to another character, "you deserve to be your own person," that authorial intent speaks for itself.

There's no doubt Nomura phoned in whole portions of the KH3 finale but it would have been pulling the rug out from under the audience to do anything less than restore each of the missing characters to some form of existence, that was implicit to the entire construction of the Days'/BBS/Coded saga. It's like if 10 years from now Nomura says he was considering a version of the KH continuity where Sora never escapes Versusland to reunite with the larger ensemble, yeah it's feasible to say that the story could go in a different direction but there's no discernible reason to expect another outcome.

I think they wanted to go with some easy questions that were lighthearted vs the more heavy-hitting lore stuff. In the end it failed because Nomura was just like “…you’ll find out one day”

Axel was conflicted in 358/2 Days, but "pain" is not what I would describe him as. But whatever pain he might have felt he brought it on himself. Axel wanted to have his friends but never put them above his own survival and let Organization XIII politic their lives until they left or died. Axel failed as friend and frankly his fate of being alone and losing it all was well deserved. He didn't know how to be a true friend at the time. You are right, Roxas didn't understand Axel, but then nobody really did.

But on the subject of Roxas and Ventus, I'm glad they didn't make them the same person. Even if Roxas didn't come back to life in KH3, the games made it clear they were different individuals. Roxas's life was his own. To come out and say that Roxas and Ventus were the same person would have made the prior games misleading and just a bad "gotcha" moment. I don't doubt that that might have been the earlier intention to make Ven and Roxas the same guy when they first made Ventus, but with each game they kept both separate people when addressing one or the other. Why would Nomura hide this when he didn't with the Xehanorts?

If they do Coco, it's definitely being handed to Sora given his current situation. I can just imagine Donald and Goofy being on the living side of the bridge and Sora being on the dead side. Xion (or Namine) is the prime candidate for an Inside Out world.

Roxas and Xion are definitely way more fun and have more creative styles of play... but are they really going to let them be playable again? Xion can be written off as not playable for sure since she didn't get anything in KH3. Roxas is a big MAYBE if he does show up again. It would be pretty horrible if Lea is the playable one while Roxas is around.

I also said to write off Roxas because Ven is definitely getting more screentime. If Roxas isn't going to get his own storyline, then he might as well not hang around.

WHEN WILL HE ANSWER WHERE KAIRI'S KEYBLADE CAME FROM!? IT'S BEEN ALMOST 2 DECADES.

I lied, made another round of updates. Here are the revisions/clarifications.

On KH4: [LIST] [*]Takes place after MoM, which is 1 year after Sora's disappearance in KH3. [*]Was torn between proceeding with Verum Rex or KH4 for the next title, but decided to prioritize KH4 because it'd be difficult to develop two big console games at the same time, and there were many fans who were worried about Sora. (Famitsu is the one who uses the word "prioritize" if you need to look it up, didn't see any other reports with that particular terminology) [/LIST] On Missing-Link: [LIST] [*]Key words: The Multi-Layered City of Scala ad Caelum (not multiple Scalas) [*]There's a base from where you can go out into the world map and explore to collect "pieces," which can be set onto your Keyblade to enhance abilities. These "pieces" take the form of figurines, like what you see in the trailer when the player uses an ability. [*]Start quests from the base and complete them to advance the story. [*]Quests and world map are the two main components of the game. [*]Nomura recalls dreaming of traveling to places that he'd like to visit but wasn't able to. [*]Thinks it wouldn't be very KH-like if you aren't able to go wherever you wanted and are instead limited by how far you can walk. [/LIST]

And all the VA stuff if that's something you're interested in.

I hope it means verum rex is still a possibility after KH4.

At this point I'm sure this question only exists cuz Riku was holding it for three seconds.

Like,

Dark thing holding character down/still

flash of light

keyblade.

Same thing happened to Sora in KH1 only there was no one next to him just holding it there.

I used to want to know what Nomura thinks of, his plans and ideas. Now I want to know what he thinks of us. How does he sees us in relation to this series and how we perceive it versus him.

I honestly think he thinks we are too serious aha. He’s very jokey and self-referential and pokes fun at that, but then the fans try and find hidden meaning in everything.

I also think he’s over us and the complaining. The man had the dialogue in this trailer be like “if you didn’t like kh3, go play other games. There’s a lot out there. If you come back to us though don’t expect it to be like 1 / 2”

Thanks a lot! That makes sense.

You know I'm not surprised that Nomura was burnt out from KH3 and is over parts of the fanbase. I may not like some of his decisions but I respect the work he tries to put into the KH series and I don't mind the new direction since KH3 wasn't that bad.

I think the fandom, by and large, did not understand Axel nor his relationships very well. Axel was in a lot of pain over how much Saix had changed. You can see it very clearly in his diary entries. One of the main themes in KH is that Nobodies are "chained" by their memories. Axel and Roxas had a discussion about what they couldn't bear to lose. For Roxas, it was his present. But for Axel, it was his memories of his past. Saix was no longer the same person, but Axel couldn't bear to lose the memory of who he used to be, and that was the motivator for all of his actions. That is why Axel needed a proper backstory probably more than any other character, aside from Xehanort. Because without that, his characterization made no sense. And then we wind up with KH3 Lea who had all of his complexity stripped away.

I don't doubt that that might have been the earlier intention to make Ven and Roxas the same guy when they first made Ventus, but with each game they kept both separate people when addressing one or the other. Why would Nomura hide this when he didn't with the Xehanorts?

I am not exactly sure why Nomura decided to hide it. I guess he wanted it to be a surprise twist or something. He did put various hints and foreshadowing in, such as Xemnas telling Roxas, "Sleep has taken you yet again."

"Roxas is the utmost secret for Kingdom Hearts III. He's the top secret actually for Kingdom Hearts III so I really can't say anything about him."

In June 2018, he said Roxas was the "utmost secret" of KH3. Well, Roxas was not the big secret that Nomura made him out to be. In fact, Roxas really didn't have a significant impact on the plot.

“Regarding Roxas and Xion reappearing Kingdom Hearts 3, I was hesitant up until the very end about bringing them back, and even had a story route where they would not return."

The most likely explanation is that, even as late as that interview, Nomura was on the route of not bringing Roxas back. IMO, the big secret was that Roxas's had Ventus's heart.

Q: When does Kairi finally get a game?
A: When she pries it out of my cold dead hands.

Q: Will Days and/or Coded ever be playable again?
A: What the fuck is Coded? I don't remember that.

Q: How fucking hard can it be to port some God damn PS2 games to Switch?
A: We had a budget set aside for that but I ended blowing it all on coke & hookers in Riku cosplay. After I woke up in a back alley dumpster the following morning with both kidneys missing, I realize we would have go to Plan Beta.

Q: Wait, cosplaying as Rikku or as Riku?
A: Yes.

I don't speak for the fanbase, but for me I've played these games for years. I understand Axel's relationships very well actually. Axel seemed far more annoyed with Saix then in pain. Only one diary entry was even about their relationship on Axel's part. In fact of all the things that concerned him, Saix's friendship seemed the least important, because he says he'd just rather miss it. I do believe he missed Saix throughout the game but he never fought to reclaim or save it. So I don't think he was his motivator beyond C.O. Ironically their friendship became the "make believe one" as time went on.

I mean, Axel almost killed Xion on Day 298 because he wasn't able to let go of his relationship with Saix. In one of the novel short stories, they show more of Axel's point of view during Roxas's 7 day summer vacation. This was Axel and Saix's exchange just before Axel was sent to eliminate Roxas on Day 6:

Maybe, this is the last time I’ll see Saix, too. Thinking, Axel looked at the seated Saix’s back. “We’ve known each other for a pretty long time, haven’t we?” Ignoring Axel’s words, Saix continued typing on the keyboard. “Say something. Have you even thought that maybe I can’t erase Roxas?” Axel said, in a playful tone, and Saix finally looked up. “It’ll be all right. Cause I’m tough.” Axel puffed out his chest. “How stupid,” said Saix, and for a moment he smiled.

It's pretty clear that Axel was only going to kill Roxas because he was still clinging to his relationship with Saix. Sure, the novels are not the games, but Kanemaki was involved with the writing of 358/2 Days. She understood Axel's motivations.

He knocked her out and brought her back. A chop to the neck is not "almost killing her" and it had absolutely nothing to do with Saix's relationship. It was a job he was tasked with. He'd do the same if Xemnas tasked him...which is what happens later. Axel's not doing it for Saix, he's doing it to keep his position in the Organization secure.

Axel was ordered to bring back Roxas or terminate him by Xaldin, and he even argued in Roxas's favor. Again it has nothing to do with Saix, they are unfriended at this point. Axel himself states with Roxas that he's not willing to get turned into a Dusk for him in KH2. And with the Xion incident he told Roxas if he didn't bring her back then he wouldn't be safe in the castle anymore. Axel didn't pick Saix over them, he picked himself over them.

I've read the novels, I've collected them, reviewed them here and I love them. But if they contradict anything from the games then it is considered not canon, no matter how good or well written it is.

You're right. If Kairi ran in to fight the heartless and a flash of light appeared and she had a keyblade, we would accept that without a real explanation.

But I think Riku handing Kairi the keyblade, then also just buying his new one after it broke kind of makes one wonder where Riku gets all these keyblades from? How was he able to change the form of his keyblade? In this same interview, he said that Lea's keyblade was broken, but Lea was able to keep using it. Why did Riku swap out Way To The Dawn? I'm kind of hoping Dark Road touches on some way that keyblade wielders can actually create/modify their keyblade beyond keychains.

Honestly, same. The possibility of them being the same character was always there... and I always dreaded it because I liked Roxas far more than Ventus. But after giving it more thought, I found a new, much better reason to dread it: role strain.

By that, I mean mixing Roxas' and Ventus' plotlines into one character. that is FAR too much to dump into one character. The amount of times that Ventus would've gotten amnesia, cured it, then got it again, then got someone else's memories entirely (Sora), locked inside a computer world, questioned his own identity, gotten split into other people (Vanitas, Sora, Xion, his "Roxas persona"), changed his group of friends, dreamed of rising up the ranks of keyblade wielders all the way to Keyblade Master, then desired to want a normal life and reject the keyblade, and all the while never remembering the UX stuff would've been INSANE.

And that's not even addressing the fact that Ventus would've been a human who became someone else's Nobody.

So in the end, where would Ventus belong? With Terra and Aqua? With the remnants of his UX friends? With the Darknesses? With Lea, Xion, and Isa? With, Hayner, Pence, and Olette? Inside some other data world because he's attracted to them like a moth to a flame? Or maybe he should be the new protagonist. With Sora's Roxas' and his own memories plus his truck load of connections, he'd certainly outclass Sora himself.

Aaaand exhale.......

Ask yourself: do you really want the storyline of a single character to be even half as convoluted and unfocused as the series in general?

Ask yourself: do you really want the storyline of a single character to be even half as convoluted and unfocused as the series in general?

Personally, I just wish we had gotten the version of KH3 Nomura actually wanted to write, not the version he felt like he had to write due to the fandom's expectations. His original vision sounds like it suited my tastes a lot more. For instance, if Roxas and Xion didn’t return, what was Nomura going to do with Lea? Well, he'd have to explore Lea's past, since Isa would have been the one who Lea was going to rescue and go home with. And then of course there's Ventus.


Mixing Roxas and Ventus’s storylines would have only made things more interesting for me. Because now Ven is just off-brand Roxas that nobody cares about. Multiple past lives and amnesia are no big deal in this series. So, that would not have bothered me one bit. Also, a human who became someone else's Nobody, then reclaimed their true self? Why not? It's better than a Sora clone who comes back in a Replica body.

I used to like Roxas back in the old days. But after KH3, he doesn't even feel like the same character. He feels like a Gary Stu fanfic version of himself. His popularity has ruined him. Look at the way he reappeared in KH3, dual wielding (which he shouldn’t be able to even do anymore), stealing a fight that he didn’t belong in, upstaging the real guardians of light, making it all about himself with cheesy lines. I hated everything about his revival. Low quality pandering. I certainly don’t look forward to his future appearances. He has overstayed his welcome and outlived his relevance, as far as I'm concerned. I feel the same way about Xion. The cast is large enough now that we don't need all of these look-alikes and clones. They made sense in KH2 back when the original characters were minimal. But now, they just feel like they needlessly bloat the cast.

So in the end, where would Ventus belong? With Terra and Aqua? With the remnants of his UX friends? With the Darknesses? With Lea, Xion, and Isa? With, Hayner, Pence, and Olette? Inside some other data world because he's attracted to them like a moth to a flame? Or maybe he should be the new protagonist. With Sora's Roxas' and his own memories plus his truck load of connections, he'd certainly outclass Sora himself.

If Ventus had acquired Roxas’s memories, he’d still be good friends with the Twilight Town crew. But of course he’d go home with Aqua and Terra. When Roxas left the Organization, he wanted to learn about who he was as a human. He wanted a past. If he had learned he was Ventus in a past life, I think he would have been happy. He was a normal human with his own identity and his own heart, not just a clone created out of Sora's heart. Much happier ending for him than coming back inside of a fake replica body.

I would agree that all of KH's "flaws" (and I don't like to take about something I like in terms of "points and flaws") are the result of trying to appease fan expectations and rando criticisms. The fake and pointless non-explanations of mechanics only started after KH had achieved notoreity as being "too hard to follow", after all.

We both agree that Roxas, Xion, and also Namine belong in the ground (just like how AtW and his apprentices belong in prison). Sure Roxas is my oshi and I care far more about RAX and occasionally Namine than any other group of characters, but I'm no fool. Of course the quality of the narrative is more important than my own preferences. I often like the supporting cast more than the main cast; I do this to myself, in a way. ?

Frankly, I'd rather they stay dead than be ignored as if they were still dead. They'd be "functionally dead", and I find that far more insulting.

Now as for this being what Nomura wanted to write... I'm not entirely sure about that.

Nomura said that he had last minute doubts about it. There are certain things he won't budge on, but he will listen to fans when he's struggling. Not verbatim, but oh well.

I hate reading into the nitty-gritty of translated quotes because there's no such thing as a perfect translation. The connotations behind the words and phrases of any 2 languages are vastly different from each other. Thus, it's dangerous to analyze them as if the original speaker knew how it'd be interpreted in English. But alas, my Japanese is below infantile and I can't contact any fluent Japanese speakers so I have no choice. ?‍??‍??‍?

It seemed like Nomura envisioned a route without Roxas and Xion, but then wavered on it himself. For what reason(s)? Don't know; won't speculate. He listens to fans when he is struggling. So, it seems he listens to fans only when he's already second guessing himself. The fan feedback was, again, seemingly, merely used to tip the scales.

May whoever translated that question please clarify this?

After cross-referencing multiple recaps and impressions from both fans and press, most everyone merely say that a scenario in which Roxas and Xion weren't revived was under consideration, but Nomura was swayed at the last minute by fans who wanted them to be brought back. Only a few made the distinction that Nomura was proceeding with no-revival, but then he wavered and was influenced by fans to make a last minute decision to go in the other direction. Nomura's statement (as well as everyone seems to remember it anyways) does not make it clear when exactly he was debating between the two scenarios, just that it was a thing that was happening and pro-revival won out at the very end.

It seemed like Nomura envisioned a route without Roxas and Xion, but then wavered on it himself. For what reason(s)? Don't know; won't speculate. He listens to fans when he is struggling. So, it seems he listens to fans only when he's already second guessing himself. The fan feedback was, again, seemingly, merely used to tip the scales.

Correct. When it comes to critical story beats, Nomura will listen to what fans are saying only when he's being wishy-washy and can't decide whether to go with A or B. The fans' voices are only used to help him make a decision between the aforementioned A and B, which remain unchanged.

This kind of lines up with how the games treated it. Revival for the Nobodies was teased but not given the level of importance that TAV was throughout DDD, and KH3. I also wonder how much Lea/Axel's DDD revival effected it? The whole "recompletion" angle was just a easy way to bring back the Organization regardless how it impacted the lore, but if they never brought Axel back would that have leaned more into not bringing back Roxas, Xion, and Namine?

When the world needed you most, you were there ?

Yea, that's how it played out in my observations as well.

It started with Blank Points in BBS more or less, but typical Nomura-like it was kept highly ambiguous and several possible outcomes could be interpreted from it for all involved characters presented there.

I remember the forums here being filled with debates back in 2011 and following years over which route would be taken from there.

Then came Coded and Re:Coded with the whole scenario around Data-Sora and the question if a heart can be born/created in a being of data and possibly also elsewhere as well as the final part of the game in Castle Oblivion which connected this theme further as well as being connected to Blank Points as well.
The whole theme of "non-natural-born" beings capable of having their own hearts was at the same time also a throwback to Chain of Memories where Sora already insisted that the Riku Replica, despite not being Riku still had a heart of his own.
It was also in the "new" secret ending of Re: Coded where Yen Sid and Mickey debated about the whole procedure of beating both the Nobody and corresponding Heartless will bring back the original person, something already mentioned in the KH II Final Mix-Ultimania years before but was only made 100% canon by being included in an actual primary medium of the series.
Back then there were also countless debates if and how that would apply to Roxas, Naminé, Xion and Xemnas because they were all unusual special cases.

This whole narrative string came then to a culmination in DDD where the question if anything can have or gain a heart of their own was ultimately answered with yes by both the "good" side via Ansem the Wise and the "bad" side by both Xemnas and Xigbar.
What exactly that meant for characters like Naminé, Xion and Roxas was still kept ambiguous even then although the whole "they can form and nurture their own hearts" already pointed to them being their own persons in essence.

Yet it was Joshua from TWEWY who spilled out the essential conditions to if a being would/could be considered their own individual:

Joshua: Well, why can't it? By ourselves, we're no one. It's when other people look at us and see someone--that's the moment we each start to exist. All they needed was for someone to see them, connect with them. And the two of you were a big part of making it happen.

And Nomura played with this during Sora's final world when he finally met Roxas face-to-face without it escalating into a battle and by throwing another curveball.
Originally Roxas was arguably the character who fought for his own identity and individuality with the most effort and fervor seen in the series, but during the sequence there in DDD he seemed to have given up and accepted himself as "just a part of Sora" and it is Sora himself who immediately interjects and rejects this reading, insisting that Roxas has the right to be his own person and that he sees him as his own person as well.

I may lean out of the window here but I do think that this scenario was still part of Nomura's indecisiveness on the matter as it was still open as to which view on things would ultimately prevail and happen in KH III.
Roxas' by now established view that he's "just" a part of Sora or Sora's seeing Roxas as his own individual.
Lea/Axel and other characters who do see Roxas as his own person would certainly also play a role towards this according to Joshua's explanation.

With Naminé, things were more subtle and less shown, but there was another promise between her and Sora beyond the whole "Thank you"-thing and that was Sora promising they'll become real friends once they meet again in person.
Kairi having thoughts about Naminé in III regarding her status and possible existence of her own heart and thus being a person of her own were a nice groundwork for her possibly starting to grow a bit as a character and not being always fixated only on Sora but sadly it didn't amount to much more.

All in all, things were however subtly developed towards them being their own persons, with Xion obviously being the most complicated case because of all the memory shenanigans and I think I do remember Nomura himself stating either in the Coded- or in the DDD-Ultimania that Xion's "return" or similar would be the most difficult to achieve.

All in all, the whole issue seems to me like a repeat of the whole earlier fandom-splitting question if Nobodies really have no hearts or rather if they remain constantly in that state.
There were several competing interpretations of this issue ever since the end of KH II and the one that they can somehow regain a heart won out in the end.

Reaction Commands coming back is going to be fun, can't wait for Laser Dome 2.0

If it’s a character we all know, but didn’t hear the voice of it could be literally anyone from Dark Road

Sigurd from UX finale; Odin, Baldr, Bragi, and Hermod from DR. Have I forgotten someone?

The Player from UX

What I love about all of this is the fact that the devs are hearing the community's complaints. "KH3 was too easy" - they added ReMind which is the hardest challenge the series has ever provided, just behind from the egg minigame from the bistro. "No FF characters & Kairi still does nothing" - they added them in ReMind and made her playable for the first time. "Too much Disney, not enough original content" - well KH4 looks like it's shaping up to have a decent mix of the two.

And now we have reaction commands returning and hopefully the end of those dreadful situation commands. The final product could be amazing.

Oh yeah I saw the TWEWY question.

Guy asked about if Sora will reunite with Neku and crew and Nomura instead just talked about the world itself.

Difficulty wise, what KH4 needs is Critical Mode from the getgo

Also I personally think Critical Mode shouldn't be some unlock after you beat the game once, I feel like you should be able to jump straight into critical

Nomura is always more coy about this than people's summaries suggest.

The last time he was asked about it he just said there isn't necessarily a connection and what's more important is that Neku's and Quadratum's are both (to paraphrase based on intention) SHIbuya instead of Shibuya, though I didn't realize the point of that until now. But this is always reported as him just saying "nothing, don't think".

I'm guessing that the narrator will be present in both games. And since time travel is a thing and Nomura introduces alternative methods of time travel that break pre-established rules of time travel.... ?????

Anyway, the game begins while Brain is still young, thus none of the keyblade schoolchildren are born yet. My best guesses are union x MC, Darkness, Sigurd, a younger Odin, or that old guy who took Xehanort to Destiny Islands.

Don't know how MC can exist between UX and DR, but Nomura always finds a way to force things to happen.

This particular Darkness could be the one that just upped and vanished after fighting Luxu off-screen at the end of UX. Or maybe the Darknesses trapped between Data Daybreak Town and Game Central Station broke free and..., I guess, aimlessly fucked around for over 100 years.

Sigurd, younger Odin, and that old guy simply cuz why not. Any of them could've gone to Quadratum after dying.

It's Sigurd.

Like, confirmed? That was quick.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/famitsu-interviews-nomura-on-kingdom-hearts-4-and-missing-link.233909/#post-6647130[/URL]

It really was quick, I couldn't believe how fast ivaannom solved it.

So it's confirmed to be Sigurd? Aww, I was going to suggest that it's the old guy who dropped dead on Destiny Islands watching Xehanort growing up. Seriously, who is that guy? It bothers me we are just glossing over this random dead dude. I think I'll name him Destiny Island-Dead-Dude, or maybe just Destiny-Dead-Dude for DDD.

Though I am curious who Sigurd is too, but the come on, we gotta learn who that old guy was.

there's already theories about sigurd being demyx. like clockwork.

"I hate that this character is/is connected to this other character.

Anyway this guy whose name doesn't spell demyx when the letters are switched around is obviously Demyx"

I really can’t at Nomura saying it’s a character we all know when Sigurd only appeared in the end cutscene of Ux (a mobile game!) and is such an unknown character compared to others.

I literally forgot about him

People are really making assumptions and jumping the gun about who's popular or not. The only ones who are the most popular characters are Sora, Roxas, and Aqua, consistently, to the point where it's painful in a good way (if you like them). The rest are extensions. The poll that was done beforehand and kept showing up was a limited demographic and doesn't encompass a worthwhile percentage of the fanbase. Nonetheless, let's break it down. For example, if you think Xion is popular because of that poll, then Kairi (the one that is not "well written") must be as well considering there was only a 20 vote difference between them, and Naminé, who Nomura has screwed over in multiple ways by sidelining her, still managed not to be far either...which is crazy considering how much of a non-presence he's made her and is now trying to make up for it. In comparison, Aqua leads far ahead of all three to an eyebrow raising degree. Sora and Roxas were basically about to go head to head.

I feel like Axel is mid (now more than he ever was, the CoM and KHII love is dwindling), and I've gotten the impression that Riku is more loved and/or appreciated in the West.

On top of that, we don't know what subset or section of the fandom the staff were looking at. Or if people wanted these characters to return because they wanted the happy ending for them and that it would be unfair. Was it during the wake of feeling bad for these characters? Opinions vary upon this subject. I'm more than certain there are Japanese fans who think they shouldn't have come back similar to how they exist in the West.

The loudest =/= majority.

But it does get attention.

Wish you could have included Naminé in that, because now I wonder where she landed on in that decision-making process. I feel she was left with bread crumbs compared to the rest in the sense that she could have a role in the future. The character story in the Character Files, the recent abundance of merch with her and her placement in the anniversary art drives that further. That, or Nomura is feeling guilty as hell.

Speaking of her, of all things that could have been asked about her, it was that? And those who were in charge of the questions, this was what they picked? o_O



I believe that's exactly what they were going for as well or they were teetering at the edge of it, but Nomura finalized them as different people. Correct me if wrong, but I vaguely remember an interview back then how he wanted to keep things open and that making Roxas be Ventus was "too predictable", and it's really that kind of mindset that makes the narrative subpar. He was worried Aqua wouldn't be popular because she wasn't tied to or connected to any other character (i.e. look-alikes) even. Rule of Cool and Rule of Shock are what basically drives his choices. Whether he learned from them is another thing, but the cloning nonsense should have stopped (and ended) at Roxas and Naminé, period. Everything else feels hand-forced. Half the cast are basically Sora derivations with one [actual] Kairi.

It makes sense that Roxas would be Ventus. The lore behind both of them interconnects them, that Ven's heart went inside the vessel that was Roxas, how they had Lea meet Ven in the past, etc. It would resolve the body situation since Roxas would have one waiting for him (I'm sorry, I still find the whole blank mannequin thing creepy...you put a Heart in something, and somehow, that makes them indistinguishable from humans because with that, they suddenly and magically get organs that weren't there and stuff...then suddenly and magically, they don't have those organs and brains and blood once the Heart is out...lmao). Roxas dual wields because he can use both his and Sora's Keyblades...honestly, if it wasn't for Nomura separating them, it's practically seamless.

Since he decided not to do it though, I would have felt some type of way if Great Value Roxas got to return and be more proactive in the next saga while not bringing back the original (by creation order), who has the better personality, is the better character, and who's waaaay more popular. Nomura doomed Ven the second he went with him looking exactly like Roxas; there's no individuality. He has off-brand Sora's personality with Roxas' face. No wonder he didn't make a splash. And I know Nomura is attempting to bring some...life and attention to the guy by inserting him in Ux, but like, should have thought of the bigger picture. He never thinks of the bigger picture and how those hedonistic decisions impacts a character.

I do see how there's a lot to pack with one character with two lives (three?), but honestly, that would have just made Roxas one of the bigger focuses of the series. Worst case scenario is that he parallels his importance to the series the same way as Sora. But is that really a worst case scenario?



I dislike how things have to be "passed on" because Xion was created from the sample of Sora's memories, and took a form of Kairi because those were his strongest memories. It just makes the entire friendship and relationship of these two characters completely disingenuous because it's more or less a replacement goldfish situation. I detested when they poisoned it by doing just that in III but conveniently ignored that in KHII. Especially when paired with the non-reaction to Kairi's, uh, "demise". From now on, Kairi's friendship with Lea will feel superficial to me. It's fine if you are going to retcon a character in Days, but the fact that these tidbits of "Xion" and subconscious memories of her were possible in the first place and yet nothing was done with that in previous games just sticks out that they clearly wanted to avoid the plot hole of KHII of why no one mentioned this one girl and why she wasn't a thing. More so because Axel did interact with Kairi.

For all we know, the old guy could be Old Sigurd. ?

You know the mobile game Final Fantasy Dimensions had a Dark Knight named Sigurd. Two mysterious Sigurds in Square mobile games. I smell a conspiracy!

I don't know who that old guy is but he needs a backstory like right now. Sora and friends have been playing on his graveyard for years now. Think about every time you play KH1's opening. Every time you play as Sora collecting coconuts, every time he and Riku race, every time Selphie plays jump ropes, they are doing it on some random old guys grave, mocking him with their happiness. No wonder the islands fell to darkness. Don't blame Riku, it's this guys fault. This needs to be brought to everyone's attention, and I shall not rest until this old guy gets his story told!

Oh yeah, that Japan-only popularity poll. That rubbed me the wrong way. The elephant in the room: Japan-only. The most jarring thing: (to my knowledge) it was an unranked poll.

It was a simple "vote for your #1 favorite male and female character". That's really reductive and limiting. This video explains the importance of ranked surveys better than I can, much of which is in the first 70 seconds. We could've learned so much nuance behind those placements, and said placements may have even changed.

Exactly. It's good if we take it as a starting basis back then, but if we are talking female characters, Aqua is the one of note. Male characters, Roxas and Sora. So the discussion about popularity in Japan, what is the basis for it? How does one know [insert character] is more popular in the East than the West? What are we critiquing? All Nomura said was that there was fan demand for characters to come back. That could vary. What did he listen to, where, were they discussions amongst fans talking about it, etc. Was it just Roxas and Xion? Because the question itself was asked in a way that makes them the primary focus.

I know for sure that Roxas was the primary target to come back with that demand, considering Nomura hinted it in KHIII itself how everyone misses Roxas and not her (Naminè). And that's definitely meta.

I thought the same thing too when I first saw him at the end of Union. If Eraqus is really descended from Brain it makes sense for Sigurd to be an old man by the time Xehanort is born in Scala.

I never actually considered that before but that would make complete sense. Sigurd is the "blue" of the group!

The blue of what group?

We barely know the guy why are we applying him to a group now

Poll contests are weird depending on where you are. The biggest example of East vs West is the Pokémon fandom.

The Subway brothers and Gum Leader Erika are super super popular, meanwhile they’re go under the radar in the West.

Sigurd is part of an unknown organization that uses wireless communication (the "keyblade secret society" i suppose) and seem to be the protagonists of Missing Link.

I know my bringing up the color thing is kind of a random "me thing" but he's absolutely part of a group.

----

The colors thing is more esoteric but, even though this is a game where you play as your own custom character, there's a member of this group wearing all white in the pre-rendered cutscene in the trailer. We see him and people wearing all red and all green as players in the gameplay bits. This is probably nothing to most people, but it's something I think about. Sigurd is kind of a bluish-purple, and the old man wears a blue robe.

It only just hit me that Xaldin may have been a casualty of that last minute decision to revive Roxas and Xion. We all thought it was weird that a character like him who made such a strong impression was suddenly relegated to be a silent bystander, especially when Vexen, who was in a coma alongside him in DDD, was brought on board to the True Organization. Given that Xaldin also has a chess piece in KH3, it seems like the plan was to bring both of them back into the fray. Last minute changes would have led to his role being severely cut, only they forgot or didn't have time to swap out his piece from all those cutscenes.

When was Xaldin's piece used? I don't think I saw it in KH3.

I'm pretty sure the same way people got pissed that Dilan and Aeleus were present in KH3, they would get pissed if Xaldin and Lexaeus were used over Roxas and Xion.

Personally, I was hoping for DISNEY or Final Fantasy characters to be the last darknesses instead of rehash Organization.

Anyway, speaking of the 20th Anniversary Event... did they ever say when they were going to release the footage of the event? Is there a confirmed date?

I'm too lazy to take my own screenshot so here's someone's pic from Reddit (Xaldin's piece is #4):

I'm pretty sure the same way people got pissed that Dilan and Aeleus were present in KH3, they would get pissed if Xaldin and Lexaeus were used over Roxas and Xion.

That's not what I'm saying at all? There is no scenario in which Roxas and Xion would be absent from KH3, but their roles would have differed from the final product based on how the rest of the story and characters were written. I'm proposing that the decision to revive these characters, really just Xion in particular, meant that she now needed a spot in the Organization to accomplish that. Whatever their reasons were, they decided they could not keep all of the members, so someone had to be kicked out in order for Xion to take their place. Xaldin may have been the unfortunate casualty of that decision.

Aeleus settled in nicely in his new role among the support cast as of DDD, so this really has nothing to do with him, or Roxas for that matter as he has a silver piece and likely wouldn't have impacted any decisions surrounding the Org.

Personally, I was hoping for DISNEY or Final Fantasy characters to be the last darknesses instead of rehash Organization. Anyway, speaking of the 20th Anniversary Event... did they ever say when they were going to release the footage of the event? Is there a confirmed date?

I don't think they've even acknowledged it since the initial announcement lol

Well I guess from that screenshot it is Xaldin... but he wasn't necessarily the one that got kicked. There's literally Vexen and Demyx as "reserve members" that are actually voiced in KH3. It's odd that Xaldin had a piece, then was reduced to nothing, when it might have been easier to just use Vexen or Demyx as placeholders.

Although, I suppose Vexen/Demyx were always planned to have their redemption storyline, so Nomura would have known he would never use them.

We know for a fact that that piece corresponds to Xaldin since it's on the store listing for the irl chess board on SE's website. The screenshot is just to prove it's in the game.

Yes, I did consider it odd to boot someone out when they had already reserve members. That's why I mentioned they might have had reasons for not wanting to add any more to the roster. We'll never know though lol

Ngl there's little basis for all this but randomly remembering the discrepancy in chess pieces got me thinking.

The only character from either side that I can actually see in the Org is Sephiroth, mostly cuz he's the ONLY antagonist FF character we've had here.

I agree that Xaldin likely was scrapped from the group. I'm not going to pretend he was a character I really cared about, but he fits what Xehanort looks for in a vessel and I'm shocked he was ultimately not chosen, not even for backup. But I don't wanna put the blame just on Roxas and Xion, or in this case Xion. Because for what the original 13 Seekers of Darkness was setting up, she fits.

Young Xehanort wanted Roxas or Sora for that 13 spot. He didn't get either of them. Xion was made specifically to replace Roxas/Sora. She's the plan C to their plans A and B. She can use the Kingdom Key and copy their powers. Thematically she is the Sora/Roxas replacement. They just did a sloppy job of her as a seeker unlike Dark Riku's replica.

I'll say this forever, but the characters that didn't fit were Marluxia, Larxene, and to a lesser extent Demyx. Adding them completely goes against what Xemnas said in DDD, even with the Union X backstories, which is another can of worms.

Still, Xion likely did bump off Xaldin. Sucks for him, but I got Data Xion in ReMind which is better then any Xaldin fight previously so...I wouldn't trade. But could you imagine if Xaldin was the 13th vessel? All that buildup for a Sora replacement and it's Xaldin? You gotta admit that would be hilarious trying to make a big deal out of Xaldin being number 13, I kinda want to see a "what if" scenario of it now.

They could have packaged it as Vanitas as the 13th member. But Xion worked much better and her return resulted in a godly boss fight and theme... and also Xion is queen.

I can't even imagine what DISNEY world Xaldin would fit in. You're right, Xaldin works way better than Marluxia and Larxene. Xemnas was pissed off about traitors and he brings back the top ones? I'm HOPING that there's an explanation in KH4. Marluxia, Larxene, Luxord (and probably Demyx) will have ties to Quadratum/The Foretellers somehow, which will explain why Master Xehanort brought them back. I would love to see the non-Xehanort clone choices being recommendations from Xigbar, who was trying to help the Master of Masters with some plan.

If Xion wasn't originally planned to be in the new Organization, then Repliku probably wasn't either. When Xehanort decided to bring back replicas, wouldn't he start with the successful one instead of the failure? Also, story-wise, isn't the main purpose of Repliku to provide a replica body for Naminé? Why would she be returning if Roxas and Xion aren't? This means there would have been two members who got booted/sidelined to make room for the replicas, one being Xaldin and the other probably Vexen.

The chess piece was probably left in intentionally, because they didn't want to put Xion on the dark side.

I think Xehanort wanted as many of his vessels as possible to be keyblade wielders, and prioritized that over past loyalty. This makes sense, because his plan was to start a Keyblade War.


More like pretending to help the MoM while actually doing his own thing. But otherwise this is a good point. It seems clear to me that Luxu originally brought those two into the organization because he knew that they would cause disorder within it.

Honestly I'm surprised Vanitas ranked so low in the Seekers. Given his association with Master Xehanort, he should have been the first non-Xehanort member selected with Xigbar. It felt like the 13th member was suppose to be a shock member and a former hero, given the former choices were Riku, Roxas, and Sora (this makes me wonder when Dark Riku was selected). That would make sense why they would be last to join. Now granted by the time KH3 happens it's not a shock moment but a sloppy rushed one with very little attention to how it happened.

Terra could have worked since they already had the 13 line during the Terranort scene, but Master Xehanort already said they had him in DDD, so timeline wise he couldn't be the one to replace Sora. Given all the Union X tie ins, I'm somewhat surprised number 13 wasn't Ephemer or Strelitzia.

As for why members 9-12 were selected. Xemnas said it was for their "ancient Keyblade legacy" I would have been less critical of it if he had some control over them, but they have full free will to backstab him if they so choose.


Dark Riku didn't have to be Riku Replica. They could have used time traveled Riku-Ansem. I don't think Nomura knew who the 13 Seekers were going to be when he came up with the concept. Xaldin and Vexen were both probably options and make more sense then the traitors, especially in the case of Vexen. But they were clearly not finalized which is why they are on bed rest in DDD, unlike obvious choices Xigbar and Saix. I think they were purposely keeping certain slots in the 13 Seekers open in case they wanted to revive a Roxas and Xion, and certain members were placeholders. Ironically we ended up with 15 total members and 12 Replicas. We'll probably never know for sure, all we can do is speculate.

Riku-Ansem is literally just Ansem in a twink body tho

Honestly I feel like Xion must have been planned or at least under strong consideration from early on, even if her inclusion wasn't always guaranteed. The main reason I think this is that the "Real" Organisation 13, seems to largely consist out of Final or Major bosses from previous entries.

Ansem (KH1, Riku: CoM), Marluxia (Sora: CoM), Xemnas (KH1, Sora: DDD), Xigbar/Braig (Aqua: BBS), Master Xehanort (Terra: BBS), Terranort (Terra & Final Ep: BBS), Vanitas (Aqua & Ven: BBS), Young Xehanort (DDD) and Dark Riku as an enemy Riku stand in (KH1, Coded, Days).

Xion not being included would have made her the odd one out. I mean technically with Re:Coded, there'd have also been an argument for there to be a Roxas in the line up, which kinda tracks with him being the original 13th candidate.

Saix, Larxene and Luxord are kind of outliers, though all of them are part of the final Boss "rush" of previous games. Okay with Larxene it's a bit of a stretch...

If you don't count the Axel rematch in CoM, Larxene is the penultimate boss of CoM before Marluxia just like how Saïx is the last boss you fight before Xemnas and Xion in KH2 and Days respectively.

I was expecting him to be a reserve for The Seekers of Darkness and I'm dissapointed that never ended up happening. After all, he was Number III in the original Organization XIII.

Hopefully he has a role in the future of Kingdom Hearts. The Kingdom Hearts III Ultimatum for Xaldin does give him an interesting arc to explore should the series decide to revisit the character.

Isn't Luxu working for the Master of Masters or is he going to turn on him?

"Keyblade War" apparently didn't need keyblades lol. All he needed to summon Kingdom Hearts were the 13 darknesses and 7 lights, so imagine if he went the route of the Organization vs. The Princesses of Heart - no keyblades involved lol.

I feel like Xion was planned in one way or another. It may not have been the Xion in Sora's heart, but another attempt at making a Sora replica. If anything, maybe they could have gone with a straight up Sora replica. It would have been an interesting pay off for their research in Toy Box and San Fransokyo. If the Organization learned how to create a heart from data, then they could have just used "Data-Sora" as the basis for the replica. It would have been a nice call back to re:CODED which I think was the only game that didn't get a direct reference in some form.

The Darkubes have the Bug Blox pattern on them, though this is not directly pointed out and I'm not sure exactly what it means.

I mean, yeah, that's the idea. He doesn't have a chess piece in the game either. His, along with RAX's, seem to only have been made for the irl chess board, since they are all absent from the Ultimania concept art.

Is this based on how the members are arranged in Limit Cut? The Character Files has side-by-side lists of both Organizations, and I find the way Xehanort's is organized to be an accurate reflection of the members' standings:

[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD]No.1 Xemnas[/TD]
[TD]No.9 Demyx[/TD]
[TD]Master Xehanort[/TD]
[TD]Luxord[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]No.2 Xigbar[/TD]
[TD]No.10 Luxord[/TD]
[TD]Young Xehanort[/TD]
[TD]Marluxia[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]No.3 Xaldin[/TD]
[TD]No.11 Marluxia[/TD]
[TD]Terra-Xehanort[/TD]
[TD]Larxene[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]No.4 Vexen[/TD]
[TD]No.12 Larxene[/TD]
[TD]Ansem[/TD]
[TD]Dark Riku[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]No.5 Lexaeus[/TD]
[TD]No.13 Roxas[/TD]
[TD]Xemnas[/TD]
[TD]Xion[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]No.6 Zexion[/TD]
[TD]No.i Xion[/TD]
[TD]Vanitas[/TD]
[TD](Bench) Vexen[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]No.7 Saix[/TD]
[TD][/TD]

[TD]Xigbar[/TD]
[TD](Bench) Demyx[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]No.8 Axel[/TD]
[TD][/TD]

[TD]Saix[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Luxu is the virus and has been doing his own things already. He restored Strelitzia, and saved Subject X a.k.a. Skuld from becoming a member of Organization XIII. His role is to observe, he is not supposed to do stuff like this.

I think they share a goal (protecting light, opposing darkness), but disagree about the means for achieving it. I believe this to be about determinism vs. freedom, with the MoM representing the former and Luxu the latter.


Yet the only unquestionably non-wielder participant in the war was Saïx. There are some nitpicks (Luxord hasn't yet been confirmed to be a wielder, but is likely to be one; Xehanort doesn't know that Xigbar is one; Repliku is a borderline case), but it looks like Xehanort really was maximizing the number of wielders. Also, why don't Donald and Goofy count as lights? Isn't it because they are not wielders?

It seems keyblades aren't strictly required, but having them is preferred, because they somehow make things easier.

It wasn't until ReMind that I truly noticed they had the major bosses of all the previous KH games as the Data Organization. I don't know if that was planned or if it was just a coincidence but it worked out for all the remix boss themes they used.


Going into KH3 that what I was thinking too. That it wasn't going to be regular Xion they remade but a Xion Mark 2 that is barely associated with the real one, and would not look like a gloomy Kairi. Basically what Xemnas was trying to create in the first place. The research in Toy Box and San Fransokyo did get me hyped for what a "Dark" Xion would look like. Ironically they still kinda made one with the Xehanort Replica that uses the Kingdom Key in Scala. Or is it Xion's Sham one? I don't know lol.


Yeah, I was basing it on Limit Cut. I don't have the Character Files so I didn't know they ranked them like this. This one makes much more sense. Is the Character Files the official ranking?

I recall an interview where Nomura said the True Organization doesn't have official rankings, because it would confuse people too much when they see that everyone from Xemnas's Org. has been pushed down (like "why is No.1 now No.5?") But if you wanted to assign them ranks, this would be the best reference for it.

I want to stick with the Character Files one! It makes way more sense with who's at the top and who's on the bottom. Young Xehanort was number XII in the Limit Cut for crying out loud lol.

I didn't know that Luxu did all of that. I wish that they made it easier to see his actions.

I was talking about the fact that a "Keyblade War" could have been done with Master Xehanort and 12 replicas with his darkness planted in them (regardless of who the replicas were) and the 7 Princess of Heart - which would have totaled about one (or at most 13) keyblades all on one side of the "war". On the flip side to that, couldn't there be a war between keyblade wielders and not summon Kingdom Hearts? What if none of the wielders in the "war" are pure darkness or light?