Properly that’s complicated!

There’s quite a lot of strain on Kingdom Hearts IV given its drastically completely different setting and the truth that it’s a begin of a brand new journey: one thing collection boss Tetsuya Nomura is painfully conscious of. Talking to Recreation Informer, he tackled the topic of Last Fantasy characters showing within the collection (or an absence thereof). Right here’s what Nomura needed to say on the Kingdom Hearts Last Fantasy crossover state of affairs.

Mainly, the rationale the primary sport had a bit of Last Fantasy characters in it is as a result of Nomura and his crew needed to ease folks into the world. He describes the Last Fantasy solid as “lending a hand” to get to know the Kingdom Hearts authentic creations. However as soon as that complete universe acquired off the bottom, they primarily served their goal:

“Now, there are such a lot of authentic characters from Kingdom Hearts which might be so well-loved, and folks need to see extra of these characters. With Kingdom Hearts III, since we did have so many authentic Kingdom Hearts characters, it was onerous to search out room for together with extra Last Fantasy characters.”

Okay, that is fascinating as hell, and kind of serves as a microcosm for the complicated themes of the collection typically.

Kingdom Hearts, by many counts, is a sport constructed round fanservice of a number of properties. And out of the gate, it was very clearly a wedding of over a decade of Sq. Enix historical past, in addition to many years of Disney historical past. However now, these Kingdom Hearts characters are literally older than some Last Fantasy characters have been on the time, and they’re the history-writers. The clashing of fandoms over which parts needs to be included makes much more sense juxtaposed to this inside plan of ushering out the FF solid.

All of it boils right down to this quote from Nomura, who could have given us a touch of what Kingdom Hearts IV has in retailer for us:

“One factor I need to clear up is that quite a lot of followers are saying that Kingdom Hearts is that this collaboration between Disney characters and Last Fantasy characters. However I actually really feel like that’s not the essential idea of Kingdom Hearts; that’s not precisely what Kingdom Hearts is.”

He says that they’re “interested by” the fan reactions of wanting extra Last Fantasy characters within the collection sooner or later, however at this level, it feels like he’s made up his thoughts. So long as they ship an engrossing sport, I’m OK if sure folks and teams don’t make it in. However on condition that Nomura and his crew set the expectation for Last Fantasy to seem within the collection, quietly writing them out in all probability wasn’t the most effective long-term gameplan.

Chris Carter

Opinions Director, Co-EIC – Chris has been having fun with Destructoid avidly since 2008. He lastly determined to take the subsequent step, make an account, and begin running a blog in January of 2009. Now, he is employees!