For a small but vocal group of fans, it’s the Final Fantasy characters in Kingdom Hearts that get their pulses racing – not the Disney ones. Therefore there was much disappointment when Kingdom Hearts 3 basically only included the Moogles, and pretty much abandoned all other Final Fantasy characters. Speaking with Game Informer, series director Tetsuya Nomura explained the reasoning behind this – and what the future holds for Final Fantasy cameos in Kingdom Hearts.
“With Kingdom Hearts 3, since we have so many original Kingdom Hearts characters, it was hard to find room for including more Final Fantasy characters,” he said, admitting that the cameos in the original Kingdom Hearts primarily existed to help the series find its feet. “I know that some fans were concerned about that and weren't too happy and wanted to see more Final Fantasy characters. That's something we definitely are thinking about.”
Looking forward to Kingdom Hearts 4, Nomura added that “with the sheer number of original characters we have now, it's hard to say what the exact balance is going to be and how it will play out” in the new game. “We can't really give you a firm reply on this just yet,” he concluded.
It sounds like the publisher has been receptive to the feedback from Kingdom Hearts 3, so we’d put money on there being more robust Final Fantasy cameos in the new game. However, we wouldn’t expect too many: “One thing I want to clear up is that a lot of fans are saying that Kingdom Hearts is this collaboration between Disney characters and Final Fantasy characters. But I really feel like that's not the basic concept of Kingdom Hearts; that's not exactly what Kingdom Hearts is.”
[source gameinformer.com]
Comments 27
Interesting, I thought Kingdom hearts was always about final fantasy characters meeting Disney characters. Which has always seemed an odd concept admittedly.
I didn't even know there were any Final Fantasy characters in Kingdom Hearts. I've never played any of the games, I thought it was just a Disney RPG.
While the Disney and Kingdom Hearts characters were always at the forefront, the Final Fantasy characters were always present. From the very beginning they were there.
To abandon them completely does a disservice to the fans as it changes the feeling of the franchise so I hope they rectify it.
We know Kingdom Hearts is not Final Fantasy, it is its own thing. But they were always a big part. It seems the creators forgot that while the fans didn’t.
Translation: "Disney told us that this is going to be their spotlight or we're done, and to get our emo weeb junk out of Mickey's grill, so the next game will exclusively feature characters from Frozen, Star Wars, and Marvel."
Seriously, if KH isn't about ff meeting Disney in a fever dream, then why was the original series filled with tons of FF characters. And if it was about using square IP to help the new series "find it's feet" WTF were Neku, Beat, and Joshua in there at all from a series nobody even played?
Revisionist history to please the Disney overlords methinks. The KH characters are convoluted nonsense to begin with. You put up with it to get to the cool crossovers.
Remember when square was... Well... Less square?
@Milktastrophe there are at least 20 of them, from FF7, 8, 9 and 10.
For example, in the first Kingdom Hearts, the main character lives on an island with characters from Final Fantasy 10 (Tidus, Waka, and Selphie)
As you progress the story in the series you meet Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Sephiroth, Squall, Cid and many others.
These are all interlinked with Disney characters and worlds and of course the original Kingdom Hearts characters.
Many fans always thought it was Disney meets Final Fantasy.
I only played for the final fantasy but now that cloud has been relegated to maybe a cameo I think I’m gonna pass going forward unless chucking Walt’s frozen head becomes the new ice magic attack.
I wonder if it's to also "spare the budget" with rehiring/casting Final Fantasy characters in the next installment after the success with FFVIIRemake. Seeing how FF7's Cid potential new voice hasn't been hired yet could be a spoiler in that case.
Otherwise, I already dropped out of KH since I felt way too old playing KH2 at 15 years old and seeing they didn't age the characters up afterward, wasn't meant for me anymore.
3 killed any goodwill I had for the series. I can put up with convoluted nonsense plot but there has to at least be a good game behind all that. Part of that did have to do with the lack of Final Fantasy characters, including staples like the Sephiroth fight. It somehow had zero heart, feeling like a mess of fan service without that even feeling good on a base level.
Did not like 3 enought to even finish it, and I've played and beaten every KH game. KH3 was a massive disappointment, and I feel comfortable just dropping the entire franchise as a whole. KH3 was less of a game and more of a Disney Amusment Park game. Not into it.
Really not interested to see where it goes next tbh.
I really like KH3, but the lack of FF characters was an egregious misstep.
@Kienda 100% agreed, I couldn't have said it better.
Here's hoping they truly learned their lesson with KH3 and will add FF characters that are story relevant.
(At least Cid and the gang plus Cloud and Sephiroth)
I’m not really surprised by this. When you look back at the series it wasn’t much of a crossover between Final Fantasy and Disney characters to begin with. The final Fantasy characters were always stuck in their own world and outside of Olympus you never saw them in any of the Disney worlds.
They didn’t even handle the Final Fantasy characters that well. All of their backstories were changed and never fully explained. Poor Cloud got it the worst. I don’t know I think leaving the Final Fantasy characters is for the best.
KH was absolutely billed as FF meets Disney, especially the first one. Look at literally any article or review at the time, the one constant was FF meets Disney. And they weren't one offs either, in any place that wasn't a Disney world, they were there to push the plot along.
They used FF characters to pull in people like me who weren't interested in just hanging with Disney toons, and then booted them to the side when their story got too convuluted with 70 nobodies, heartless, etc, etc.
Kh3 was missing something big. I couldnt put my finger on it. Maybe it was the idea that characters from different universes were lost.
So maybe including ff characters was a massive part of what made kh successful.
@NEStalgia completely with you until you said
Sadly I remember when they were just Square, before they were SquareSoft (in America) and before they were SquareEnix… take me back to those halcyon days when they were more Square!!!
In other news I always wondered why Square and Squaresoft’s logos had a highlighted red triangle, not a square. ONe of life's little mysteries. (Now it’s rectangles on SquareEnix go figure)
So essentially the only reason final fantasy characters were in the first two games was to act as a filler because they didn't have enough Disney characters . It feels like Disney spat out their dummy because there was too much focus on final fantasy characters though they saw to add a marvel character in kingdom hearts 3 . The 3rd games story was terrible it just doesn't make sense to cut the final fantasy characters with no warnings , at least have some sort of story to explain what happened to them . As soon of the Disney world can be quite a cringe fest
Kingdom Hearts 3 is where I exited from the series. Partly because they made no attempt to help fans who had only played KH1 and KH2, partly because after spending all those games looking for Kairi they shoved her into a corner as soon as they found her.
And partly because it was just missing something, it didn't have the thrills of the earlier games.
Why does Square Enix avoids us Playstation players with games like Tiangle Strategy, Octopath Traveler and Live A Live? Would it be that difficult to port?
I always seen Kingdom Hearts as it's own thing but having those Final Fantasy characters just makes the game even more special. I love seeing them being a part of it. They don't need a big part in the game and leaving them out just makes the game feel less special. It takes away the merger between Disney and FF and just becomes Disney
The whole reason it came about was because SquareEnix (or soft if it was pre merger) shared a building with Disney and it all came about in a conversation in the lift with two of the top executives saying "wouldn't it be good to have a game with Disney characters and Final Fantasy characters?"
So that's EXACTLY the basic concept behind the series.
Nomura saying it wasn't is just him saying that he doesn't want to do it as it interferes with his convoluted vision.
What's happening with Square? Looks like they are trying to turn into a western company. This is just sad. They should leverage on their own strength. Also is there anything that Disney can't screw up?
Cool.kingdom hearts games are incredible.word up son
I know the FF characters weren't that important to the story, but it was still cool to see them there. All you need to do is just give them a world where they help sora with whatever enemies would be there to push the plot forward a little bit just like they did in traverse town and Hollow bastion in KH1 and 2.
They could be party members and sora and cloud could have a double omnislash limit break. COME ON NOMURA. COME ON.
But fr even if you don't wanna include them in the story how about just giving them cameos? Making them summons maybe? Secret boss? There was no need to completely scrap them. To say that the basis of the series isn't ff x disney is silly cuz we all know about the elevator conversation all those years ago and how the series came to be.
The story has literal holes in it. Important characters disappear for no reason. Not adding characters is one thing, but just forgetting about existing characters with a role in the story is unacceptable.
@Jaz007 Define "literal holes".
@Kienda Selphie was FF8
@Kiryu-Chan whoops, yes she was.
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