Kingdom Hearts franchise producer Tetsuya Nomura has finally set the record straight on why there were no Final Fantasy characters in Kingdom Hearts 3.
Kingdom Hearts 3 released last year, and while fans of the series were generally pleased and non-fans were generally confused, one thing everyone could agree on was that the lack of Final Fantasy characters from the game was just downright strange. Kingdom Hearts had always been a game that married the worlds of Disney and Final Fantasy together in some unholy union and having half the roster of characters absent made the whole game seem like a bizarre Disney advertisement.
Last March, Kingdom Hearts 3 co-director Tai Yasue explained in an interview with Game Informer that the decision to exclude Final Fantasy characters was made to “concentrate on the main storyline of Kingdom Hearts,” which just didn’t really focus on any of the Final Fantasy heroes.
Tetsuya Nomura later added that although the Final Fantasy character models had been made, they were never put into the finished product due to time constraints.
Now, Nomura has come clean and admitted that the lack of Final Fantasy characters was due in part to a lack of time and also due to story constraints.
In a Q&A session titled “7 Lights and 13 Darknesses” leading up to the release of Re:Mind, Nomura explained in the 13 Darknesses section that the story of Kingdom Hearts 3 didn’t require a visit to Radiant Garden, so there was no need to include any of the Final Fantasy characters. However, work-related issues also led to the decision to cut the Final Fantasy characters from the final product.
Nomura added that fan feedback led to a reversal of that decision so that Final Fantasy characters could return in the new DLC.
Re:Mind also brought an entirely new Final Fantasy character to the fore named Yozora. The final secret boss of Re:Mind has Sora fighting Yozora to unlock the secret endings. Defeating Yozora provides the good ending, while Yozora’s victory provides the bad ending.
Yozora might become a central figure in Kingdom Hearts 4, or he might be the hero of the next Final Fantasy game. Stay tuned to find out.
Source: Gamerant
