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Kingdom Hearts director Tetsuya Nomura was recently interviewed by Japanese magazine Young Jump. In the interview, Nomura was asked mostly about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth but did answer a couple of questions pertaining to the Kingdom Hearts series, including keeping managing lore in his team, what we may expect in Kingdom Hearts Missing Link and Kingdom Hearts IV, and when he may retire. You can read the Kingdom Hearts portion of the article below. Special thanks to KH13 translator Ryuji for the translations. What did you think of the interview? Let us know in the comments below! View full article

What Kingdom Hearts related topics do you think Tetsuya Nomura will talk about in his interview with Young Jump?

What has been your favorite Nomura artwork for Kingdom Hearts this year?

Hey. It's been a little while since I've posted, so I decided to make a document of my attempt to comprehensively break down the development of Final Fantasy Versus XIII. I was inspired by what we've learned about Verum Rex recently, particularly from Re Mind. I redirect my sources to a Reddit page that has all of the links compiled together. I did not make this page, but here's the link: https://www.reddit.com/r/FFXV/comments/aoohys/spoilers_citations_thoughts_regarding_versus_xiii/ I know this isn't exactly Kingdom Hearts, but in light of how it is becoming a relevant topic, I wanted to clear up any confusion based on what was revealed about the game over the years. I plan to make a second document continuing this one soon. Please enjoy. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O4gnJfmLSbFTWlixj_IYeYxTxSVQeMioBPHq9uL8LNA/edit?usp=sharing

Previously, two Q&As were released on the Japanese Twitter of Square Enix, dubbed the 7 Questions of Light and 13 Questions of Darkness. We already covered them with translations previously, which you can view here and here. Today, Square Enix released an official translation of the two Q&As! WARNING: The following interviews and Q&As contain spoilers about Kingdom Hearts III Re Mind. Reader discretion is advised. View full article

Kingdom Hearts Director Tetsuya Nomura and Composer Yoko Shimomura were interviewed back in February about the Kingdom Hearts -World of Tres- concert tour about the tour itself, the process of having the soundtracks for the games created and approved, and more. The interview was conducted by Tomoko Kanemaki and Taketeru Sunamori. The transcript of the interview is listed in the official -World of Tres- brochure. You can also view the interview below. [Thanks to KH13 News Team member Leamax for providing the transcript.] What was your favorite quotes from the interview? Let us know in the comments below! View full article

IGN have recently published a feature and a video on talking with members of the Kingdom Hearts III development team about working with Disney in this project. Toru Yamazaki (art director), Kayoko Yajima (lead facial animator), Tai Yasue (co-director), Koji Inoue and Munenori Shinagawa (animation directors), and Tetsuya Nomura (series director) talked about the rewards and challenges working with Disney and Pixar for the game. The video also shows the Square Enix developers show off some of the work they used for the development. (For those who haven't player or finished Kingdom Hearts III yet, be aware that the video contains some cutscene and gameplay footage from the game.) In the video, Yamazaki explained how in previous titles they would recreate the characters from scratch based off the properties, whereas for Kingdom Hearts III they asked Disney to share their resources with them. Disney have provided the original polygon shapes of characters with guidelines on how to add more detail, such as hair and clothes) on them. However, things didn't always go as planned as those resources were not originally made to be used in a video game. For example, models' joints weren't defined and so had to be added manually and physics-enabled objects like capes needed to be particularly revisited. Of course, making sure your game is as accurate to the film as possible means there needed to be lots of things to be approved over time. Both Disney and Square wanted to make sure that the team were doing an incredible job at recreating their magic and sometimes were there approving things every step of the way. It seemed that every single detail in the process had to get approved before even moving on to the next scene, and any change that they had made needed to be explained. Disney and Pixar not only required changes after things were made; Square needed their approval at almost every stage from concept to finished product. According to Yasue, cutscenes were the most inspected element in the game perhaps due to portraying the source material most intimately. With things needing to be approved almost every minute, other things they had an easier chance with. As it turns out, the crazier the change to the original property the more likely it had a chance of being approved. This is because changing the character so it is not the same but still recognizable, Disney didn't make a fuss due to perceiving it as a new character altogether. For gameplay, they team brainstormed ideas that they thought Disney would be likely to approve for its world and characters before letting them see a walkthrough and accepting comments. Painstakingly, every single gameplay action was scrutinized to the smallest detail. However, Disney's role was not only to correct, but to collaborate as well as things had to have some sort of continuity. For instance, Inoue mentioned that when Square approached Disney with a story about a Wreck-It Ralph summon that pounds the ground, Disney recalled a scene from the movie where he did exactly that. Inoue also talked about how pleased Pixar animators were to see their IPs, such as Monsters, Inc., recreated with technology superior to what they had when those movies were first made. Along with making the Disney experience in Kingdom Hearts III more authentic, getting feedback for their project ended up helping the Square developers in the long run to become better animators and storytellers. Working with Disney was one thing, but also working with Pixar was very different. Pixar was in fact more attached to their property, approving more stages of production and participating in weekly conference calls with the animation teams to ensure the most accurate representation of their IPs. Both Disney and Pixar kept their teams of animators intact following the release of their IPs - and they all had a say in the reproduction of their work in Kingdom Hearts III. Nomura went on to explain how it was working with both companies, how they reacted differently to the same issue (even within the same studio) with how the plot of the world should go as well as how it should look. He also had some convincing to do for the studios to fall in like with his longtime vision of Sora and friends canonically arriving to the Disney worlds. View full article

Someone might still be having hard times realizing this but yes, it has been a whole month since the launch of Kingdom Hearts III, which happened on January 28. To celebrate, Tetsuya Nomura and the Kingdom Hearts team decided to give fans a special thank you. You can take a look at the short video here below. Don't forget to take a look at our latest articles on Kingdom Hearts III Ultimania and Tetsuya Nomura's Dengeki PlayStation interview! View full article

Tetsuya Nomura, the game director of the Kingdom Hearts saga, recently confirmed, during an interview at the E3 with The Verge that he and the whole team are putting "equal efforts" into both Final Fantasy VII Remake and Kingdom Hearts III, as both projects are being developed in parallel. He precises: Concerning the release date issue that recently came out, according to Nomura the game wasn't delayed because it needed more time: The company then had to factor possibilities of retailers in specific regions closing early or offering limited sales hours: Last but not least, he says that he owes a lot to his fans, which keeps him motivated to keep on going creating: We want to remember you that Kingdom Hearts III is going to be released in January 25th 2019 in Japan and Worldwide in January 29th 2019. Be sure to keep following our E3 2018 coverage on our site and on all our social medias (Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr)! Click here to view the article

Who will be the special guests for Kingdom Hearts at D23?

In his pocket he'll have a note with the release date of Kingdom Hearts 2.95 Truly-Final-Prologue ReMix

I understand time travel in Dream Drop Distance for the most part, but there's always been this one thing that I don't really understand. in the game, we are told that the Robed Figure passed on the ability to time travel to Young Xehanort, so that Young Xehanort doesn't have to get rid of his body or something like that. I was confused as to how you can just simply "give" someone the ability to time travel, so I looked into it. I found a Nomura interview where he says this: "to transcend time one must ‘first’ discard their form. As a result of the actions of the Brown Robed Figure, they all were in a state where they had gained the power to transcend time. The Brown Robed Figure explains the facts. The thirteen were summoned at the same time, this time thanks to Young Xehanort who borrowed that power." What does this mean exactly? Am I the only one who has no idea what he's saying here? Could it be the translation that's making it more confusing that it actually is, because I'm not sure what he's trying to say? It seems like he's saying that they all gained the ability to time travel because the Robed Figure was Xehanort reduced to just a heart, but how does that make it so they all have the ability to time travel? Sora and Riku have both been reduced to just a heart before, but they can't just randomly time travel as they please, they need Yen Sid's magic in order to time travel. I thought that you actually need to be a heart while you're time travelling, because that's what Yen Sid said, but Nomura's making it sound like all you need to do in order to be able to time travel is you have to have been just a heart once in your lifetime. That seems way too OP. Plus, it completely contradicts what Yen Sid said. Since this is the case, it makes me believe that's not really what Nomura's saying here, so is there any other way to interpret what he's saying? EDIT: After doing some more digging, I found this in the KH Ultimania: "Discarded his body and became able to travel through time. Traveled back in time to the Destiny Islands and gave Young Xehanort some of his own power. Due to discarding his body and becoming the Robed Figure, all incarnations of Xehanort gained the ability to travel through time. However, the only ones actually able to do so were the Robed Figure and the one he had given his power to, Young Xehanort." I guess it sort of works like how Keyblades work. Just because you have the ability to wield a Keyblade, doesn't mean you have a Keyblade/doesn't mean you know how to summon a Keyblade.. Similarly, just because you have the ability to time travel, doesn't mean you can time travel/doesn't mean you know how to time travel. And what the game really meant by "the Robed Figure gave Young Xehanort the ability to travel through time" is "the Robed Figure shared some of his powers with Young Xehanort". So, it all makes sense...I guess? It "makes sense" in a very Kingdom Heartsy kind of way lol EDIT: Just found this interview with Nomura. What he says he throws me back into confusion: "Nomura: First off, when Young Xehanort made contact with the Brown Robed Figure, that is to say, the Xehanort who called himself Ansem, his abilities were transferred to him. As a result of Master Xehanort tossing his physical body, he was able to exceed time, and this power was carried into the Brown Robed Figure. Thus when Young Xehanort made contact with him, he gained this power. Possessing this power. Young Xehanort functioned as a “portal”, summoning Xemnas and Ansem each time they appeared. That’s why Young Xehanort was there whenever they appeared. Additionally, when Sora and Riku dropped into the worlds of sleep, simultaneously Young Xehanort himself goes into the world of sleep.' I have no idea what Nomura is saying at this point. I really really really hope this gets cleared up in KH3.