New Nomura Gameinformer interview. Discusses Disney Worlds, Quadratum, and Final Fantasy in KH4.

[mriku90]

How that guy has a following I do not know, he's a moron who'll literally throw clickbait vid after clickbait vid no matter what comes out and he never has to pay consequences for being wrong 99% of the time.

 

[2 quid is good]

Not to mention pretty much all of them just blatantly use forums users content but anyway -

 

[Elysium]

The fact that Nomura keeps hyping Yozora up scares me, it really does. Personally I kind of already hate him and I, like everyone else barely know anything about him.

I felt that way since KH3 until my personal theories about his identity formed following the IV trailer. Now, if I turn out to be wrong about Yozora in the end, then, like someone else said, he could die midway through IV for all I care. Or in the first 5 minutes for that matter.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

The fact that Nomura keeps hyping Yozora up scares me, it really does. Personally I kind of already hate him and I, like everyone else barely know anything about him.

Frankly, if you look at it from the very basics Yozora is just the third incarnation of two concepts Nomura already used twice.

The first concept being the introduction of fancy, at first glance interesting looking characters with an air of mystery yet having visual parallels with existing ones , firstly done with Roxas as dual-wielding dark robe boy in the secret ending of KH I Final Mix and secondly with TAV, Vanitas and Master Xehanort in the secret ending of KH II Final Mix.
The second concept being a character being introduced as a very difficult secret optional super boss with hints at having main story importance, firstly done with Xemnas (the Enigmatic man) in KH I and secondly with the Lingering Will in KH II. Yozora fills the role in KH III

The main difference is that this time it happened already during a running game, we already know his name and the teasing has already multiple instances.

However, as we already have seen with Roxas and TAV the "hyping up" of Yozora by Nomura will last only as long as the current dedicated interest of Nomura himself for this part of the story holds up.
And the overall broader scope story and the associated twists and surprises will dictate how long Yozora remains a focus, not how well developed his personality or personal character is.

And yet here we are several years later from BBS, and Dilan hasn't spoken a single word since the fight on Beast's Castle. Real big impact right there ladies and gentlemen. Let's not forget that we couldn't get Laguna Loire to act as the mirage arena's master because he had to appear in Dissidia 012, which is something I still don't understand. What? his agent only wanted him to participate in Final Fantasy events only? was KH a bad thing to put on his resume?

That's Nomura's logic in terms of what could be interesting when looking at the overarching story as a whole, not concerning single characters or relations between them.
Considering how underused even the major characters are which aren't named Riku, Sora or Xehanort I doubt that for example any meaningful impact remains of Ventus meeting Lea and Isa or the other former Organisation members, as these supposed hooks are dropped instead of developed and followed through.
Heck, even the supposedly so super special heart connection between Ventus and Sora, something that was hyped up quite a while was literally dropped and barely addressed at all.

Although the fandom of the series is widely divided in many things, I do dare to theorize that there might be parts of the fanbase which would have preferred for Ven to meet with younger versions of Squall/Leon, Cloud and the other FF cameos rather than a rather creepy conversation with Even/Vexen and the whole stuff with Lea and Isa.

A part of me has the suspicion that this was his plan all along, and like @Underwater Cop says, Disney will get the axe next. Honestly the genius of KH is something that's unrivaled at this point and it's sad that half of the unique dynamic had to be thrown away for the sake of characters like Axel and freaking Yozora. I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep if Yozora is killed in KH 4 in the middle of the game, that's how little I care about him.

I long for the days when KH V-Cast was the only mobile game that existed and Nomura cared less about implementing it into the already convoluted story and just focused on the side games that already were focused on the main story. Did we really NEED to play through the keyblade war and revisit Agrabah again?

I wouldn't say all along but after Dream Drop Distance there was certainly a shift in priorities and the introduction of the whole beast that is the X-era marked a point where at least the impression comes up that Nomura started to loose interest in much of the story of KH that had transpired so far and changes were made to quickly wrap up the remaining story to make room for the new one based on the whole X-era stuff, in the process also simply discarding some elements of the series as a whole with a feeling they're either not needed anymore or simply in the way of what should come next.

I get what you mean with Yozora though, as it becomes more and more clear that Nomura doesn't really care for the characters as characters but rather how they fit into the overarching big narrative as pieces and plot devices, throwing them back into the toolbox when the current plot doesn't need them as device, it starts to become difficult to care for characters you can anticipate to never reach the potential they may have because they will be sidelined or reduced to one to two line cameos after they are introduced.

It's more or less obvious that the long gap between KH II and III, the whole constant issues Square had during the PS3 and early PS4 era, be it the clutterfuck that was Versus XIII or even the whole XIII-series of Final Fantasy and the whole "Fabula Nova Crystal"-project did the KH series no favor.

What-if-dreaming almost never brings anything worthwhile because you can't change things which already happened. But I do sometimes wonder how KH III would have turned out if the original idea with having BBS as the single bridge game like CoM was for I and II would have been realized.
In terms of the whole X-era shenanigans I am not even entirely sure when that started, was it around the same time DDD arrived or was it afterwards?
What I do remember though is that when it was only a confined internet browser-game available in Japan there was for quite a while the announcement that this X[Chi]]-stuff would be stand-alone and not connected to the main story with Sora & co., only a single passage in the Book of Prophecies having an indirect connection to III.

 

[Agroogrooiya]

Sad to see that you guys were told to stop posting articles. I mean, I UNDERSTAND it, but like...come on. I don't go to game magazine 123 for specific game news, I never really did. I *always* went to SPECIFIC GAME FORUM whether IRL or on the Internet. Their desire to kill forums and force everyone to reddit or [SPECIFIC COMPANY SITE] is not and never will be the answer IMO. Even if KHI is super slow I will always come here for KH news.

I should apologize for saying nobody plays KH for the story or music. That was highly ignorant to say the least, and needlessly aggressive. I should say instead that I personally cannot and will never carr about the story because the answer is always ZA POWAH OF FRENDSHIP to whatever problem the cast is facing.

 

[Recon]

Come on Nomura, we know you listen to the fans now, pls listen on this

For real. Part of me says it's too late however with KHIV shifting gears and focusing on different Disney IPs. If we can get cameos/the gang back like we did in Re:Mind then I'm fine with that. Again, will probably be as DLC if it does happen.

 

[lucky.peic]

Sad to see that you guys were told to stop posting articles. I mean, I UNDERSTAND it, but like...come on. I don't go to game magazine 123 for specific game news, I never really did. I *always* went to SPECIFIC GAME FORUM whether IRL or on the Internet. Their desire to kill forums and force everyone to reddit or [SPECIFIC COMPANY SITE] is not and never will be the answer IMO. Even if KHI is super slow I will always come here for KH news.

I should apologize for saying nobody plays KH for the story or music. That was highly ignorant to say the least, and needlessly aggressive. I should say instead that I personally cannot and will never carr about the story because the answer is always ZA POWAH OF FRENDSHIP to whatever problem the cast is facing.

Source about being told to stop posting news?
Cant seem to find anything about it

 

[Dreq the Dreck]

I hope it is more of a sign that they will try to include them, but that we shouldn’t expect them to play a major role. If they’re bringing reaction commands back due to apparent fan demand, including FF characters should be a no brainer. But it does remind me of how he approached the same question when people were asking it for KH3.

Honestly, the Restoration Committee deserve to lead Radiant Garden more than Ansem and his apprentices do. What have they done to restore the world that they willingly helped ruin? Nothing. What have they done to establish rapport with the people? Nothing. What reason do the people have to trust and forgive them? None.

The only thing those bastards deserve is prison.