Above: Nomura working on a sketch of Sora.
Making an unexpected hit
Before Nomura created the characters that he would later love to torment, he had an idea for a game that, at the time, had nothing to do with Disney or Final Fantasy. He was purely focused on building a game around a specific mechanic.
“I wanted to make an action-packed RPG in which the character can move around freely in 360 degrees. That was brewing in my head,” he said. “I was contemplating, ‘Do I want to go with a completely original storyline and totally new IP?’ or ‘What are my [other] options?’ And that’s when I heard about Square Enix wanting to do a Disney collaboration. That was moving at the same time. So it was a good opportunity to merge [those two ideas] … . [Since we are] working with Disney, we can’t be too violent. So I had to tweak it and that’s when I came up with the idea of stealing hearts. That’s how it evolved.”
The first Kingdom Hearts became an unexpected hit for Square Enix. During a developer panel at the Disney lot, executive producer Shinji Hashimoto added more context to their success story. He said it took some time for the first game to take shape. And while that was going on, Square and Enix were still two separate companies who specialized in JRPGs, but plans for their merger (partly to “fight off the threat of heightened development costs”) were already well underway. It was a “relief” for him to see both the game and the company’s transition work out in the end.
Above: The launch ceremonies were held in the Disney lot’s theater.
Nomura also revealed that he didn’t originally plan to release so many Kingdom Hearts games (seven in all as of this writing). He wasn’t even sure if he’d ever get to make a sequel.
“When I went into the very first Kingdom Hearts game, I was bracing myself for what could possibly be the one and only title within the franchise,” said Nomura. “And maybe if we can get to a sequel, I could tease something about it at the end, but I was okay with it being just a standalone title.”
History would later prove that he had nothing to worry about. Square Enix chased after the first game’s popularity with a flood of sequels, prequels, and side stories. These added new characters and plot twists that expanded the overarching narrative.
Nomura explained his reasoning for writing such a complex story: He wants to encourage people to share their interpretations and reactions with one another. He compared it to the way movies can generate lively discussions because of intentionally vague or complicated storylines. Whether Kingdom Hearts actually deserves this kind of analytical breakdown is another hot topic of debate among players.
Above: Master Xehanort (right) is the series’ main villain.
Finding time for his fans
Despite vacating his role as director on the upcoming Final Fantasy XV, Nomura still seems to have a pretty busy schedule. In addition to Kingdom Hearts, he’s involved with many projects outside of game development. His personal life, however, is a bit more ordinary. At the panel, he described himself as a “homebody” who really only leaves his house to grab groceries, and he recently got two cats to keep him company. And while he’s no stranger to doing interviews with the press, he’s slowly been coming around to the idea of meeting with fans in person.
“For both [the 2014] San Diego and New York Comic-Con, I came with the Square Enix merchandise team, and the division head of that team has always been prodding me, ‘You should come to the states and interact with the fans more!’” said Nomura. “So, reluctantly, I started to warm up to the idea and attempted to get out there and try to meet with fans. And the more I’ve been interacting with them directly, the more I’m feeling, ‘Oh maybe I should go out and do this more often.’”
On that Monday afternoon, he showed that he wasn’t afraid to have a little fun with them as well. At the end of the program, when he was leaving the theater with his colleagues — and as people chanted “King-dom-Hearts! King-dom-Hearts!” in the background — Nomura ran to the emcee and gave him a piece of paper before disappearing backstage. The emcee read the note to us, where Nomura said that while he couldn’t show any footage of new worlds from Kingdom Hearts 3, he also didn’t want to come here empty-handed.
A short video clip suddenly appeared on screen showing never-before-seen concept art, a few seconds of Sora walking around a library, and rough battle animations. If the “oohs” and “aahs” I heard were any indication, the audience absolutely loved it.
I didn’t have a chance to ask Nomura what he thought about their response to the teaser, but I like to think that somewhere in the building, the scheming creator was already dreaming of new ways to confound both Sora and his fans.