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You can also watch it in our trailer archive for the HD Collection along with other trailers and promotional videos.
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Kingdom Hearts was your first title as a director. What do you think about this game today? Nomura: It is of course more than ten years since the game came out, but I still do not think it has aged. Instead, it always has a certain freshness. At the time, the game team, including myself, had worked passionately on it, and that's probably why it gives me that impression, even ten years later.
Have you been tempted to add more things to the HD remastering of Kingdom Hearts than just graphics and controls?
Nomura: Everything that was in the original game worked very well for its balance, and for the system we had imagined at the time. Although I designed many other gaming systems in the ten years that followed, I think that this balance would be upset if I was to integrate the first Kingdom Hearts. My only regret is Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, for which we could only release the cinematics in HD. I wished to include this episode as a playable in HD 1.5 ReMIX, but unfortunately we could not do it because we had to prioritize the development of Kingdom Hearts III, which fans have been waiting for. This is why we have not added other things to the HD version.
Will you do other HD remasters in the future?
Nomura: There is of course other episodes of Kingdom Hearts that we have not yet been published in HD, so if we had the chance, we would like to do so in the future.
With the announcement of Kingdom Hearts III, we can say that you have entrusted the future of the series in the Osaka team. Are they up to the challenge?
Nomura: The Osaka studio developed HD 1.5 ReMIX, so we can not say that they have never worked on the current console generation. But you're right, in the case of Kingdom Hearts III, it is actually the first time they have developed a completely new numbered episode, on next generation consoles at that. This is why we have made many preparations and extensive tests to date. As I feel that the preparations are complete, we were able to get in the development phase.
However, as your main team at Square Enix is situated in Tokyo, do you not have difficulty communicating with the Osaka team?
Nomura: In fact, the co-director and producer Tai Yasue and Rie Nishi are there. They are key members of the Kingdom Hearts project, so when they need to discuss a lot of different topics with me, they come to Tokyo. This is our usual method of working. But as technology is ever advancing, our new offices in Shinjuku are now equipped with a video conference system. Now, Yasue and Nishi can send me their materials or proposals in advance, which allows me to add my comments or my drawings and show them on camera in our video conferencing. In addition, there is no time difference, so even if we are far apart, it is easy to work.
So we can say that you supervise the team more than you do the head?
Nomura: Yes, especially this time with Kingdom Hearts III. Yasue and Nishi's teams offer me lots of ideas and we discuss together to know what we will keep or not.
Is it surprising?
Nomura: They offer me many interesting ideas, of course. After all, the more the merrier, the more the merrier. So it is always better to have a whole team to think, rather than myself. This is beneficial. The past ten years of existence, the Kingdom Hearts series has found its own identity even though many were initially surprised by the alliance between Square and Disney.
Do you think it is always helpful to include characters from Final Fantasy in KHIII?
Nomura: It is not because the Kingdom Hearts series is now well established that we do not need to add characters from Final Fantasy, it is actually that we have published a number of derivative episodes on portable consoles in recent years, and because of the technical limitations of these platforms, the volume of the story was rather limited. For KHIII, disk space is much larger, so we can actually deepen the story and are adding more characters. It really depends on the size of the game. It is quite possible that we will integrate many Final Fantasy characters.
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Here are the updates in detail:
- Our Japanese HD 1.5 ReMIX video archive is now complete, with a big thanks to our partner, Everglow8444.
- We've added a complete playthrough of Kingdom Hearts Re:coded's Japanese version in HD 720p.
- Next we've also added a complete playthrough of Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories' Japanese version in HD 720p.
- And we've also updated our cutscene archive of Birth by Sleep Final Mix. It is now much easier to access the cutscenes you're looking for.
- Finally we've also added sections to our playthrough archive of HD 1.5 ReMIX's Japanese version. This allows you to access the game you want to get to much easier.
We hope you enjoy all these updates and look forward to more soon.
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Update: Square Enix have uploaded photos from San Diego Comic Con 2013 to their official Facebook page. The Kingdom Hearts related photos can be viewed below, in our gallery.
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Kingdom Hearts χ[chi] official website
Kingdom Hearts χ[chi] discussion forum
This announcement has also included some details about the final version of the game. Kingdom Hearts χ[chi] will be free-to-play, but will include a paid service called "Charge Munny", where people can buy points to spend on in-game items. Items that you can buy include a rare card called 'Raise Draw', Megapotions, and Megalixers. You can also find Kupo Nuts in treasure chests on the field, and trade these in for rare assist cards.
Other updates will be announced at launch. Until the launch, you can still keep playing the open beta test, and your data will be carried over when the game launches-- so keep playing, and have fun! Square Enix thanks everyone for the help so far. When the game launches, there will be new maps and new worlds, with new characters, quests and raid bosses. Stay tuned for more details about Kingdom Hearts χ[chi]. Thanks go to staff translator goldpanner for translating these details for us.
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RPG Site: It must be an interesting time for you right now - in Kingdom Hearts 1.5 you're revisiting a major milestone in your career, while building two new ones in Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III. When you look back at your older titles, such as KH1 or FF7 and 8, what do you see? Do you see changes you would like to make, or do you release your creations once complete? Tetsuya Nomura: Well, as a creator I always create something new - I keep challenging myself to create something new. Looking back on my old games and everything I was involved in, I often think to myself 'I could have done this' or 'I could have added that,' and stuff like that. It's part of the process.
Right now, though, for Kingdom Hearts specifically - the original game was released more than ten years ago now, but looking back, the original Kingdom Hearts Final Mix... I don't feel like I should add this or that, or any more. Back then, it was perfect as it is.
Even though I've played this HD version of the game knowing its age, I don't feel that it's very old when I play it. I can still feel the passion I had back then in this original game - so, yeah. If we remake a game, maybe we then go and think about adding new elements and sequences and stuff like that, or making large changes - but I think a HD remaster, with the visual upgrade, is the right thing for this particular game.
RPG Site: After the E3 announcement and showing, a lot of people online are defining FF15 as having Kingdom Hearts style combat. When 15 was Versus, I always figured it as an experiment - that your team would then go on to KH3 after completing that - but now Osaka is on KH3, which also looks to have that signature gameplay style. Does that concern you - that the two games could end up too similar in gameplay?
Nomura: Okay, so... [pauses] Two games. Both directed by myself. [laughs] However, both games are developed by two completely different teams. The two of them - they don't fight, but they compete - in a friendly way - and they try to create better things together. Both sides are, of course, developed for next-gen consoles as well.
KH3 and FF15 share some base action RPG gameplay mechanics, it's clear, but Nomura seems unphased. There's a difference between the two, of course; Final Fantasy XV is a numbered title - the big history behind Final Fantasy, the task they have on their shoulders is huge, because it's the latest Final Fantasy game and has to live up to that history.
For the Kingdom Hearts team there is less history, but there are thousands of people around the world who are so passionate about the Kingdom Hearts series and have been for years - and this of course is the first announced numbered Kingdom Hearts title in many years, as well. People's hopes and expectations are very, very high there, as well - so that is on their shoulders as well.
So, the two teams have different kinds of tasks, different kinds of missions they have to complete and accomplish. That's the most important thing for both teams.
From the user's point of view, I don't think they worry about these things, or think 'which is better?' or anything like that - both teams look in a different direction. The most important thing for me is that they focus on the tasks - the missions - that each team has.
RPG Site: It's appears it's all about sequels and spin-offs now. There were many Kingdom Hearts titles between II and III, while on the FF side we have sequels - X-2, XIII-2, Lighting Returns - and you've already announced FF15 will have sequels. How does planning for multiple titles at a time instead of just one effect you as a creator?
Nomura: To start, the reason why we have had so many Kingdom Hearts spin-off games... well, look - it's above your imagination, seriously, believe it or not - creating a HD game is unbelievably difficult. [laughs]
People think it's easy - even a HD remake like 1.5, they think 'Ah, easy job' - but it actually isn't like that at all. Everything is difficult in the process, even with a HD remaster of a game. For 1.5 for instance, when we decided to make it, we had to decide where we were going to concentrate because it was so difficult, there was so much work involved.
We'll likely spend the better part of the console generation with FF15's core cast via sequels. The main reason why we had so many spin-offs for Kingdom Hearts is because we couldn't start preparing for Kingdom Hearts III for a while - for a long time - because... well, because of some reasons, basically. However, if we didn't release any Kingdom Hearts games after the second at all, people might forget about the game, might forget about the series.
Obviously, I didn't want to do that - that's why we decided to make a spin-off game until the preparation for Kingdom Hearts III was ready to do.
So, in a way, because of this, if there were no spin-off games, there was no Kingdom Hearts III. It was kind of needed to have all those spin-offs - a lot of spin-offs - because the time was quite long before the Kingdom Hearts III preparation started.
With Final Fantasy, each game has a different reason why we decided to do sequels and stuff - for Final Fantasy X, for XIII... Of course, with Final Fantasy XV, we announced at E3 that there will - probably - be a sequel to this game, as well.
There's a lot of different reasons, and they all depend on the game and the situation as well. Of course with FFXV I wanted to release the previous version of the game constantly - but it was very, very difficult to do so.
Now we have re-revealed the game, I'm excited to bring more information in the future.
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1. At the end of each day, everyone in the top 10 of the the list of the day's top posters will receive 1 entry in the competition.
2. You can receive many entries in the competition! If you're on the top posters list on multiple days, then you will receive multiple entries in the competition. We'll keep a detailed list of entries here. Remember, the more days you appear on the list, the higher your chance of winning! Also, please be aware that the Roleplaying, Forum Games and Random forums are not included, and that we will disqualify anyone who makes "spammy" posts.
3. Around two weeks from now, on Wednesday the 31st of July, 2013 (at 12PM EST time), we'll pick a random winner from the list of entries and contact them. Good luck!
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