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On April 10, 2022, SE officially unveiled kingdom hearts 4 and kingdom hearts lost chains at the 20th anniversary of the Kingdom Hearts series held at Shibuya Hikarie in Tokyo, where we will quickly bring you a brief interview with the director of the series, Tetsuya Nomura.
▲ "Kingdom Hearts" 20 week commemorative video
Tetsuya Nomura (hereinafter referred to as Nomura)
Creative director of the game. He worked as a tester for FF 4 in the development of the FF series, and then began to design characters and monsters in FF 5, and in FF 7, he was not only responsible for the design of the main characters, but also put forward many ideas about the story and combat system, and then he participated in the production of FF 8, FF 10, FF 10-2, FF 13 and other games as a main developer. In the Kingdom Hearts series, Nomura has been a director for a long time, and in addition to the FF and KH series, he has been involved in the development of se's numerous other games.
There is a hidden mystery in the information revealed at the venue
| Q: The Kingdom Hearts series has celebrated its 20th anniversary.
Nomura: Thank you.
| Q: Looking back on the past 20 years of the series, how do you feel?
Nomura: I didn't expect that so many years have passed, but recently I feel that time has really rushed by.
| Q: It's been three years since the release of Kingdom Hearts 3.
Nomura: Yeah. In these 3 years, the story of Kingdom Heart Union χ was completed, and the cloud game versions of Kingdom Heart 3 Re: Mind, Kingdom Heart Memory Melody and Nintendo Switch were also released.
| Q: Although the Kingdom Hearts series has a long history of 20 years, there are not a few young fans, as evidenced by the number of young audiences who have always participated in the commemoration.
Nomura: Yeah, the number of young fans of Kingdom Hearts does make up a lot of it. Probably because of the addition of Disney elements, it has aroused the interest of young people.
| Q: There are a lot of valuable game-related materials displayed in the venue, among which The statue of Sora has Mr. Nomura's message written on it, and the word "X" can be seen on the third line from the bottom up.
Nomura: That's the hidden message I deliberately left behind, and the "X" is the hint of this hidden message. I've seen a lot of people do a lot of research on social platforms, but so far no one has guessed the right answer.
| Q: The wording used in the message and the "X" and the segmentation of the sentence always seem to be a bit contradictory, there must be something strange in this.
Nomura: It took me a lot of work to design this message (bitter smile). On the one hand, I want to convey the impressions of the 20th anniversary to everyone in words, and on the other hand, in order to make you notice the anagram, I have to deliberately make it look a little unnatural, and then add hidden information on this basis.
| Q: I'll try to see if I can decipher the hidden messages later (laughs).
Nomura: Don't underestimate the difficulty, no one can answer even our own staff (laughs).
What kind of world is Founder City?
| Q: I was shocked that the teaser video for Kingdom Hearts 4 faithfully recreates Shibuya Hikarie, the venue for the 20th anniversary of the real-life series, and its surroundings. Did you decide a long time ago that you wanted to hold an event here?
Nomura: Yes, our initial goal was to host an event in Shibuya Hikarie. Shibuya is a major landmark in Tokyo, and everyone is very familiar with it, and if you want to restore the real world with games, choosing a place that everyone is familiar with often brings a stronger sense of realism.
| Q: Is Shibuya in the film also part of the world of Founder City?
Nomura: Yes.
| Q: Speaking of Shibuya, is it possible that players will encounter a Wonderful World character who appeared in Kingdom Hearts 3D?
Nomura: Strictly speaking, Shibuya in the video and Shibuya in Wonderful World are not in the same world. Fans might have thought that the game would be related to Wonderful World or Final Fantasy Origins: Strangers in Paradise, but that's not the case.
| Q: Was the room Sora was in when she woke up in Shibuya?
Nomura: The location of that room should be in Minami Aoyama.
| Q: What a great place! (Laughs) Have the settings been fine enough?
Nomura: Yeah, even the room layout has been meticulously set. However, the furniture and the like have not yet been determined, so the decoration may change in the future. By the way, that room is where the game starts.
| Q: What kind of world is Founder City? It is represented as the "Inner World" in Kingdom Hearts Memory Melody, is it a new world that does not belong to the world of light, the world of darkness, and the world of cracks?
Nomura: It's okay to think that way.
The theme of Kingdom Hearts 4 is the contrast of different positions
| Q: There is a narration in the promotional video: "Although this is the world of the living, it is a 'dead world' for us." What does this mean?
Nomura: From different perspectives, your understanding of the world will be different. In Heart of the Kingdom Union χ, the master of the masters says something similar. From Sora's point of view, the City of Founders is a different inner world from reality, a fictional world. But in the eyes of the residents of the Founder City, the world of the Founder City is reality, and the world where Sora and others live is the fictional world inside. The theme of this work is the contrast between different positions.
| Q: That's the way it is. The female voice of the narrator is also from Sora's side, so I will deliberately emphasize "for us".
Nomura: Yes.
▲ Kingdom Heart Union χ
| Q: Are male voiceovers the same character as the narrator in Kingdom Hearts, Chains of The Lost?
Nomura: Yes, although the characters are the same person, we let the voice actors do different interpretations. The character is an old face familiar to fans, and this is the first time in the series that he has been dubbed.
| Q: Donald Duck and Goofy are still in the original world, right? What did the real Sora look like in the original world?
Nomura: Donald Duck and Goofy are still searching for Sora's clues in the original world. In the trailer, the world before the title Kingdom Hearts 4 appeared was all Square City, so Sora's appearance is closer to reality, but if you return to the original world, it will become a painting style like Donald Duck and Goofy.
Kingdom Hearts 4's battle concept is "scrap the old and build the new"
| Q: In the battle scene, you can see various deformations of the key blade and characters running freely, giving the impression of the evolved version of Kingdom Hearts 3.
Nomura: That's right, you can see the button icon when the enemy attacks in the image, so think of it as a reaction command in Kingdom Hearts 2.
| Q: Oh well. Enter the command displayed in the moment correctly, and a special action will be launched.
Nomura: Yes, the specific buttons are not displayed in the screen because the game has not yet officially announced the platform to land.
| Q: Ah, that's right.
Nomura: After the release of Kingdom Hearts 3, there were many players who wanted to be able to revive the reaction command system, so we responded to everyone's wish in this game.
▲ Reaction instructions in Kingdom Hearts 2. In certain cases, a special command will appear above the "Battle", which can be used to launch a special action
▲The above image is from a screenshot of the teaser video
| Q: What is the use of "Reconstruction" displayed in the command window at the bottom left?
Nomura: The combat concept of this game is "scrap the old and build the new", and reconstruction is an important instruction that represents this concept.
| Q: What does it mean to "build a new one"?
Nomura: We can't reveal more information at this time, we can only say that destruction and reconstruction are the keys to this combat system, so stay tuned for future public information.
Experience the feeling of traveling around the world from home in Kingdom Hearts Chains of The Lost
| Q: "Kingdom Hearts 4" belongs to the "Lost Masters" in terms of plot, and which chapter does the mobile game "Kingdom Hearts Lost Chain" released on the same day belong to?
Nomura: Heart of Kingdom Missing-Link is not part of the "Quest for Darkness" in the Kingdom Hearts series until the 3rd generation or the "Lost Master" at the beginning of the 4th generation. In addition, although there are also works belonging to the X(key) series of "Kingdom Heart X(key)", "Kingdom Heart Union χ", "Kingdom Heart Dark Road" series, "Kingdom Heart Lost Chain" is more like a work that fills the gap between the series.
| Q: In the trailer we can see Brin's figure, will he be the protagonist of this game?
Nomura: No, the players themselves are the real protagonists, and everyone can create their own avatars in the game like Kingdom Hearts Unchained X.
| Q: This game looks like a challenging game, with high-action combat that can be fully enjoyed by multiplayer, supplemented by augmented reality technology, and added gameplay elements related to location information. But in fact, you can manipulate the character's movement even if you don't go out, that is, can you control the character's movement simply in the game?
Nomura: Yeah, doesn't Google Maps have a Street View mode? Click in Street View mode to move where you want to see, and Kingdom Hearts Chains of Lost basically follows this line of thinking.
| Q: So even Okinawa can walk there?
Nomura: Yes. It's just that if you want to go far away, it can take a long time (laughs). Of course, if you are willing to use points, you can immediately teleport to the place you want to go.
| Q: If you don't want to use points, actually go out for a walk. How to choose or leave it to the player to decide, right?
Nomura: That's right.
| Q: If the venue is connected to the real world, will there be a place like Disneyland?
Nomura: We're experimenting with various things, such as depending on the timing, some locations will present the terrain and atmosphere modeled on Disneyland. At the beginning of development, we also tried to switch the theme scene of the entire map, but because it felt that it was a bit too much, we made a slight callback.
| Q: Collecting hand-made pieces seems interesting, and the multiplayer combat part is also interesting to watch.
Nomura: In this game, we hope to try more of the ideas that are difficult to achieve in this part of the main book, so please be sure to look forward to the internal test that is expected to take place in the fall.
This concludes the interview in this article. The full content of this interview will be published in the combined issue of the weekly Magazine Fami Tong from May 12-19 (released on April 28), so don't miss it.
Translation: Half-dollar
Edit: Bluestoon