The full Square Enix Presents Day One discussion.
image:
http://gematsu.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/KH3-Unchained-Int_06-16-15.jpg
Kingdom Hearts III director Tetsuya Nomura and co-director Tai Yasue sat down with
Square Enix Presents at E3 today to discuss the newly announced
Kingdom Hearts: Unchained Chi for smartphones and the
new Kingdom Hearts III trailer.
Get the full interview transcription below.
Kingdom Hearts: Unchained Chi
Regarding the Final Fantasy VII Remake
Nomura: “If I can take a little bit of time to speak about this… Thank you so much. We’ve gotten such a reaction from everybody. People from Japan have been contacting me with their congratulations, and fans here have been so excited about this announcement. I’m very relieved that we were finally able to make this announcement. I contacted Kitase-san and Nojima-san in our Tokyo office about how the trailer was received, as well as started discussions about things moving forward.”
Regarding Kingdom Hearts: Unchained Chi
Nomura: “Just a little bit of background: In Japan, we already have a browser game that we call
Kingdom Hearts Chi, and there’s actually been a few people overseas that have been playing this Japanese version of the browser game. There’s been a demand from people overseas that want a version that’s available to them also. That breadcrumb was there, and with our concept of
Kingdom Hearts Chi,
Unchained Chi on smartphone was conceived around the same kind of timing. So now that we’re able to announce
Unchained Chi to smartphones, we figured because there is demand from the North American audience, we would love for them to also take part in this experience. So with the launch of the project, we are pleased to announce it for the North American audience.”
What’s going to be different about the game for smartphones?
Nomura: “The basic story-line between
Kingdom Hearts Chi and
Unchained Chi are, for the most part, similar. But there is a bit of a gimmick, per say, between the two versions, so that there is a bit of a differentiation between the browser game and the smartphone version. You’ll find out the two different
Chis as the story unveils. And a certain secret will be revealed as you’re going through the story-line. On smartphones, of course, you have your touch features, so that’s one of the major differences from the browser version. Where earlier on the screen you saw metals show up for the smartphone version, in the browser version that was originally a set of cards that you’d be playing with. But so that it’s easier on smartphones where you have a touch-based environment, we changed that card mechanic to metal.”
Where does Kingdom Hearts: Unchained Chi sit on the timeline?
image: http://gematsu.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/KH3-Unchained-Int_06-16-15_001-600x338.jpg
Nomura: “It might be easier to just look at the chart over here, but throughout the
Kingdom Hearts series, we’re following one timeline, so to speak. And then, with
Unchained Chi, we’re experiencing the earliest part of
Kingdom Hearts history. Sora appears in the original
Kingdom Hearts installment, but they’ve been hinting at a Keyblade War.
Unchained Chi takes place right before the Keyblade War and kind of leads up to that event.
“And in the
Kingdom Hearts III trailer that we premiered, in the beginning you see a young Xehanort and Eraqus talking to each other about the Keyblade War, and that is kind of, where you see on the chart towards the beginning of this timeline, the front part of the history. But that plot actually connects to the story-line of
Kingdom Hearts III, as well. So
Unchained Chi has a relation to
Kingdom Hearts III.”
Will we learn any secrets from this title?
Nomura: “Of course, in
Unchained Chi, we will encounter characters that have not appeared in the
Kingdom Hearts series yet. And of course, they play a very ‘key’ part in our story-line—a very important role—so it’d be great if people can take this game into their hands, try it out, and see how the story unravels so that you’ll get a better understanding of what’s going on in the story-line.”
Can you talk about how the art style of Unchained Chi was approached?
Nomura: “If you’re a
Kingdom Hearts fan, you may already be familiar with this concept, but there has been certain mentions about a fairy tale that talks about the Keyblade War. You may remember Kairi’s grandmother told that tale of the Keyblade War. Considering the story-line of
Unchained Chi takes place right before the Keyblade War, we wanted to make it look like a page out of a storybook, where you’re listening in on the story of how we’re leading into the Keyblade War. Not only about the characters, but the background images, as well. Sort of like a page out of a fairy tale.”
Are there any Disney characters we should be on the lookout for?
Nomura: “As you can see from this screenshot, you see Alice there. But familiar characters from the Disney world, or characters who’ve made their appearance from the Disney world, are more than likely to show up. And everyone has an importance concerning the role they play within the story, and we hope that we can continue to add content to it, but I’m sure a lot of Disney fans that can appreciate these characters will enjoy seeing them in
Unchained Chi. The art style is so different from what we call the ‘consumer version,’ on the console or handheld unit
Kingdom Hearts installments have come out on, but this art style takes a more storybook approach to it. Say for example, in the
Alice world, the look is closer to that of the storybook
Alice. And the other characters will have their uniqueness in the art style, so we’re hoping that the Disney fans can enjoy the characters that appear in
Unchained Chi, as well.
Before we watch the Unchained Chi trailer again, is there anything we should be on the lookout for?
“Social games, or mobile games, tend to demonstrate the game system and things like that. But with
Unchained Chi we wanted to make it so that it piques your interest in the story, and make it very much like a
Kingdom Hearts title. So we tried to pick the portions that relate very much to the story and the dialogue that is being spoken between the characters. So I would love for everybody to pay attention to what is being said in the text bubbles that you see in the trailer.”
Kingdom Hearts III
Regarding the first Disney world announced: Tangled
Nomura: “This is the first time we’re showing the world from
Tangled. And actually, during interviews, I’ve been asked by a lot of media ‘why choose
Tangle?’ This is actually one of the first worlds we determined would be in the game. The process usually runs where the development team would come up with suggestions and present it to me as a proposal for the worlds. But for the world of
Tangled, they just really wanted to get this to come through, and they just had this determination—this desire—to have the world of
Tangled featured in
Kingdom Hearts III. I was explaining it earlier, but the reason they focused on
Tangled was, at first impression, the characters Rapunzel and her strong personality, as well as her hair, the way she is able to utilize her hair in such a way where she’s whipping it around. She can even use it for attacks, and that was just so appealing, and we thought it would make for such great gameplay, so we had a very strong desire to include that.”
Can you point out anything else in particular about this?
Yasue: “Of course, in one of the first meetings with Nomura, we talked about the first transformation of the Keyblade. And we wanted to incorporate a system where they Keyblade transforms in real-time to form another weapon. For example, there’s the double bow gun where you’re shooting arrows, as well as the magic blaster, where you’re shooting blasts of magic. You have one Keyblade, but different forms it can take. And that’s one of the major elements that are going to be featured in
Kingdom Hearts III.”
Are there any worlds we can look forward to seeing besides this?
Nomura: “Of course, the Disney worlds that we are choosing for this new iteration of
Kingdom Hearts are going to be primarily newer areas that may have not been experienced before. We just recently had a meeting with Disney to discuss what we’re going to announce next. I was personally very unexpected about this, but we might be able to announce another world very very soon.”
What kind of heartless will we meet in the Tangled world?
Yasue: “You may have noticed in the trailers, you saw some dandelion-like heartless. These guys, the more you hit them, the more those fluffy seeds fly out and more heartless that spawn out. It’s a very unique gameplay battle against those heartless. We have more of those—something to pay attention to is that the heartless cooperate with each other, and sometimes it’s like a parent-child relationship, so we try to bring out a variety and range in the heartless battles you’ll experience in
Kingdom Hearts III.”
What was the inspiration behind Sora’s new costume design?
image: http://gematsu.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/KH3-Unchained-Int_06-16-15_002-600x338.jpg