Narrator: What happens when Final Fantasy style characters are thrust into the Disney universe? You get a new action RPG game called "Kingdom Hearts". If you saw our story last month, you learn how these two heavyweights, Disney and Square, came together to seamlessly blend the two worlds. This month, we're going to dive deeper into the gameplay and explore this submissive action RPG.

Takeshi Endo (Stage Planning Director - Square): In the beginning of the game, Sora starts his journey from his home, while at the same time, Donald and Goofy begin their journey. The three meet and Traverse Town, and travel to different Disney worlds, including Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, and the Nightmare Before Christmas.

Narrator: Since each of the game's worlds are so different, we figured that everyone involved in the game had a favorite.

Tomohiro Kayano (Character Model Director - Square): My favorite is the Nightmare Before Christmas world. It has the more unique look than the others. The rest of the game is made using animation styles, but the Nightmare world is made with actual photographs. It achieved an interesting look with combinations of the 3D game world and real photos. I'm really pleased with the results.

Tatsuya Kando (Animation Director - Square): I think the Peter Pan and Aladdin worlds are very interesting. Especially the mothership fight in the Peter Pan world.

Tetsuya Nomura (Director and Character Designer - Square): My favorite is Destiny Island because when I designed it, I wanted to get away from work and go to a tropical island. This island looks very relaxing. At the same time, this world contains many keys that help you solve problems later in the game. It's a very important location.

Narrator: To help him make his way through all of these amazing worlds, Sora carries a unique weapon.

Endo: One of the main items Sora will carry is the Keyblade. It is not only a weapon to defeat enemies, but it has a symbolic purpose to locking the door to each world.

Nomura: The Keyblade's appearance and abilities change depending on what kind of chain is attached. These keychains alter Sora's attacking ability in different ways. For example, one of them will raise Sora's attacking ability while at the same time drastically reduce his magic points.

Narrator: For those of you that are Final Fantasy fanatics, you won't be disappointed. Even though Kingdom Hearts is not a traditional RPG, gamers will definitely recognize several elements from the famed RPG series.

Nomura: Well, since the core staff of this game have worked on Final Fantasy games in the past, we thought it was about time we'd try something different. I like RPGs because they are the type of game that players get deeply involved in. Sometimes, RPGs have a hard time including action elements into the game, so we incorporated a lot of action into Kingdom Hearts to the point where some may call it an action game.

Like Final Fantasy, this game also has experience points. The difference is that you can earn points during battles, whereas you earn them after each battle in Final Fantasy. For example, if you dodge an enemy's attack, you earn a point. As your character's experience points go up, your character becomes stronger. Since action is heavily incorporated into this game, a skilled action game player may move up to different stages without having a substantial amount of experience points normally needed to move on. Some characters from the Final Fantasy series that will appear are Tidus, Wakka, Selphie, Yuffie, Cid, Mog, Squall, Cloud and Aerith.

Narrator: In all of Square's games, music has been a crucial element of the storytelling. Kingdom Hearts carries on that tradition.

Yoko Shimomura (Composer - Square): I tried not to use any music that already exists. My concern was to compose music that flows nicely and matches the mood. I did use some original Disney music, but tried to blend it well so that listeners would not feel awkward when my original music is mixed in. Anyway, my main concern is the flow of the music. There are 76 tracks, which is more than usual. I usually use 50-60 tracks. We used the full 100-piece orchestra to record the theme song (referring to Hikari -Orchestrated-). I think a lot more people participated in this music process compared to our usual work.

Narrator: As Sora travels through the worlds of Kingdom Hearts, he makes use of a ship that's not like anything you've seen before.

Endo: After finishing a world, the characters get a saving point for their entrances and exits to each world, and the characters can cross the space to each world in a Gummi Ship. The Gummi Ship is owned by King Mickey, and Chip and Dale are the engineers who lend the ship to Donald and Goofy to use on their quest. Sora joins them and is allowed to fly on their ship. The Gummi Ship is not only a vehicle, but also a way to obtain items. Users can customize the shape and the type of the ship to whatever they choose. By using the Gummi Ship, Sora and his crew members travel freely between different worlds. Because each Gummi block comes with different features such as an engine or a laser, the ship's capabilities change as you add or remove different blocks.

Narrator: While we had the chance, we had to ask the developers at Square if they had any hints to help us through Kingdom Hearts.

Nomura: People just ask me questions about Aladdin yesterday, like "Where should I go?" or "I can't open one of the doors," etc. There are always hints hidden somewhere in the game. I personally don't like including conversation that is totally irrelevant to the story or interrupts the flow of the game. Unlike any other RPGs which lets you obtain information from the same character over and over, you need to concentrate on listening to each and every word any character says in this game, otherwise you may miss very important hints and get yourself in deep trouble. Yesterday I told the person who was looking for hints in Aladdin to remember what other characters were saying. Then he seems to understand.

Narrator: In a game this deep, you'll have to keep your eyes and ears open, but if you do, you'll experience a game that's like nothing that's come before it, bringing together two amazing companies to tell one amazing story. It's Kingdom Hearts, and it's available now only for the Playstation 2.