Even people new to the series will be able to understand the story.
-- So how is development going?
Nomura: We’re putting on the last finishing touches. Right now we are fixing the text a bit. The story this time has a lot of things that might be difficult to understand, so we’re trying to make it flow better. We want to make it easier to understand for people who have never played another game in the series. But, when this interview comes out we’ll be finished with it.
-- So who is responsible for the scenario writing?
Nomura: Myself, as well as Watanabe (Daisuke) who worked on “Chain of Memories”, and Oka (Masaru) who helped with the scenario for KHII. “Kingdom Hearts” is always worked on by several people.
-- There is a lot of underplot going on in the story, but can people who have never played any other game in the series really understand what is going on?
Nomura: That question was asked quite a lot with “358/2 Days”. but I feel that if you play it from the view of the main character, you can play the game separate of all the others. But for some people, if they don’t know the whole story they will feel as though they are the only ones who don’t know something, and they will become doubtful and suspicious. In other words, they won’t be able to follow the small details. Those details are meant for the people who have played the rest of the series, but that doesn’t mean that new players won’t be able to have fun with the underplot. For example, this will be Ven’s first meeting with Lea and Isa. New players will be able to meet them along with him, and so long as they think “These are special characters” then that’s fine. I’d be happy then, if those people who start wondering about those tiny plot details and went back and played the previous games in the series. I think there are things that are interesting because you’ve played through the series, and things that are interesting because you haven’t played through the series.
-- I see, so there are different ways the plot can be interesting.
Nomura: Well, the “Kingdom Hearts” series has become a series where people have fun imagining what could be. Whether you’ve played the series or not, that doesn’t mean you know everything. Though people with a good head on their shoulders probably know what is going to happen.
-- There are three different main characters this time, what order do you recommend playing their stories?
Nomura: For the story I recommend Terra, Ven and Aqua, but I think it can be fun played from any character. For the gameplay, Ven is the easiest to use. Aqua has strong [?] and Terra’s movements feel very heavy, so I think Ven is probably the easiest to play with.
The best and most exciting battles in the series.
-- So how is work going on the action part of the game?
Nomura: Well, we think that beginners won’t have to worry so much when they play the game. We’re finished now, so they are going through debugging, and it sounds like they are having a lot of fun. They say it’s a nice change of pace. Though right now they are getting exciting beside the programmers, I’m a little worried (laugh) [I honestly couldn’t understand what he was talking about in the last sentence. Anyone?]
-- Even just playing the demo I could tell how exciting the battles were. I felt they were the best in the series.
Nomura: Everyone is saying that. Even the debug staff have been saying that the battle system is the most interesting and fun in the series. Of course I think it’s fun thinking for yourself and choosing your own set of Commands. It started in “Chain of Memories” with the Card Deck system, then it was improved in “The World Ends With You”, and now we feel we’ve perfected it with the Deck Command system.
-- Can people who aren’t very good at action games complete the game?
Nomura: Yes they can. I think they’ll be okay just on Standard, but for people who lack confidence there is always Beginner. Then if they don’t feel that is difficult enough they can switch and start again from Standard. With the battles this time, just hitting the buttons in sequence will allow you to naturally change your attack, and the three main characters fight with superhuman fighting skills, so even with just that I think you can have fun.
-- How many Deck Commands are there?
Nomura: Since you can put items in your Deck as well, it runs to over 100.
-- With that many things to choose from, I would think it would be difficult figuring out what to put in your deck.
Nomura: Once you’ve found Commands that you like, you can just keep using it. There is no need to use them all. In the end, you can just use what you like. There are a lot of different things to use as well as Deck Commands, like Shoot Locks and D-LINKs, but you can just fight using only Deck Commands if you wish. So you don’t have to think about it too much.
-- With the D-LINK system, you can use King Mickey’s power, right?
Nomura: He has the same Holy attacks and abilities that Minnie had in KHII.
-- There seems to be many different types of Shoot Locks...
Nomura: Yes, and each one has different levels, and depending on the ability there are different amounts of levels, and there are unique Shoot Locks for each character.
-- In a previous interview you said that the main characters were too strong, but how did it balance out in the final product?
Nomura: Of course we were able to balance it, but the difficulty level will change quite a lot depending on what Deck Commands you used. Just like I said before, you can use whatever abilities and attacks you like, but to get the best results you need to choose your Deck carefully. Also, there is a hidden boss like “Lingering Sentiment” in KHIIFM. Since the response to “Lingering Sentiment” was so good, we put an extremely strong boss in the game. But some say that “Lingering Sentiment” is more difficult. But that is because the difficulty really changes depending on the Deck you use. It was quite a lot of trouble fine tuning the boss exactly.
-- Do you think you’ll be able to finish the game at a low level?
Nomura: Yes I think you can. There were people on our Osaka staff who tried to finish the game at level 5. How you get through the battles and what Commands you use is all up to the player.
-- What other elements are there?
Nomura: There is the wireless. Normally you play Arena Mode with a few friends, but you can play by yourself as well. But if you play by yourself, the enemies will be extremely strong and it will be difficult. Possibly even stronger than the hidden boss I was just speaking of.
-- I was very surprised to hear that in VS Arena Mode you could play with six other people.
Nomura: We wanted to make it so that as many people could play together as possible, but in the end we could only do six. By the way, in the KHIIFM secret movie you can see Terra in his armor with a cape, but we took off the cape in this game. It was to make processing easier when you’re playing with six people. Processing of moving fabric can be slow, so the speed it runs at is completely different if he has a cape or not.
-- Attacking each other and stealing each others Commands is quite unique.
Nomura: We were thinking of Marluxia’s attack in “RE: Chain of Memories” when he scatters your Deck. If you get attacked a lot, the only Command you’ll have left is “Attack” (laugh) But the reason we thought of the rule was so that it doesn’t become a brutal fight against each other.
-- It’s been announced that you can use each other as D-LINKs in the game.
Nomura: The D-LINK system was originally designed for this. In the game the main themes are “bonds” and “connections”, so it is something we thought of as you don’t have any party members usually. But it was so much fun, we decided to use Disney characters as Links as well.
