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Update: Hidemi Matsuzuka, the merchandise manager at Square Enix, has uploaded a new photo showing off the new Kingdom Hearts figurines, first revealed above. The figurines, Meow Wow, Meowjesty, a Flood Unversed, a Dusk Nobody, and a Shadow Heartless, are all shown below.
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You can now watch/download every cutscene from both the Japanese & English versions in HD 720p.
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Japanese cutscenes
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, English cutscenes
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Update 1: The pre-order page for the HD 1.5 ReMIX wall scroll on Amazon.co.jp has updated with the release date of the merchandise in Japan: August 23, 2013. Starting on this date, the wall scroll will be available for ¥2,292 (approximately US$23.30).
Update 2: Square Enix France have announced that the HD 1.5 ReMIX wall scroll will begin being sold on the Square Enix Boutique at the end of September 2013, for a price of €22.99 (approximately US$30.53). There has been no announcement for North America or other regions yet, but we will keep you updated if any information appears.
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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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