TheKingdom Heartsfranchise is known for combiningJRPGelements with beloved Disney properties.
When it comes to the series protagonist Sora, creator Tetsuya Nomura wanted to verify he was a non-Disney character.
Why I Keep Replaying Kingdom Hearts 2 Every Single Year
I guess you could say this game has become My Sanctuary.
In a 2003 interview uncovered byShumplations, Nomura details the creation of characters inKingdom Hearts. The interviewer points out how Sora’s design was inspired by Mickey Mouse, which Nomura admits.
For Sora’s coloring, I was very conscious of Mickey Mouse. Since all the other characters are not Square characters but Disney, I wanted Sora’s design to be a kind of “grand compilation” of all the characters I’d drawn up till then. So I think he resembles a lot of characters: there’s a bit of Cloud, a bit of Tidus, some Sion too. I was very intent on that.
After working for over a decade atSquare Enix, including various roles on sixFinal Fantasygames,Kingdom Heartswas Nomura’s first time directing a game.He also served as the game’s main character designer, having designed characters inFinal Fantasy VI,Parasite Eve, andFinal Fantasy VIII.
Tetsuya Nomura Was Adamant That The Game Did Not Have A Disney Protagonist
In the interview, Nomura details his plans to combine elements from the JRPGs he worked on previously with elements from beloved Disney movies and characters. He talks about how he wanted the game to do something impossible within the framework of a normal Disney story. One example of that is the game’s protagonist.
We talked about using an existing Disney character as the protagonist, but from the beginning I knew I wanted the main character to be non-Disney, with an “all-star” cast of supporting Disney characters. That was one thing I wasn’t willing to budge on.
Nomura also wanted to create a world players would get lost in. One way he does that is to deliver an experience that isn’t traditional in JRPGs. While it’s not quite a typical action game,Kingdom Heartscontains more action-oriented gameplay than the traditional turn-based JRPG combat of the time. It’s also a gameplay system that, at the time, would never be seen in aFinal Fantasygame.
That was also one of my goals from the very beginning. I thought they would get pissed at me if I tried to put a system like that into a Final Fantasy game. So it was an idea I had lying dormant in me for awhile.
Of course, this interview is from 2003; 20 years later,Final Fantasy XVIwould boast a combat system more in line withDevil May Cry.
Was Kingdom Hearts 3 Really As Bad As Everyone Remembers?
For better or worse, it still does all the things a Kingdom Hearts game does.
One last takeaway was the game’s perceived difficulty. Despite the Disney theme, Nomura didn’t want the game overly easy. He wanted fans to be challenged and have reasons to keep coming back.
My concept for Kingdom Hearts was that it would be a game with a lot of depth, something you could play for a long time. I wanted to try making a game where the player could do anything. Even though Kingdom Hearts is a Disney game, there are quite a few “hardcore” elements that remain. Things where you’d think, we probably have to make this more friendly―we dared to buck that expectation in a number of places. For example, the map is 3D, but we deliberately did not include an easy-to-understand 2D-overhead minimap display.
Originally, getting lost and having to use your head was part of the fun, I think. I do wonder if all the recent hand-holding and over-explanation from developers is really a good thing…
As for whether or not Mickey Mouse would show up inKingdom Hearts, that was a secret at the time.
