Today on Square Enix's radio show, Square Enix Channel, KINGDOM HEARTS HD 1.5 ReMIX and KINGDOM HEARTS χ[chi] was the feature topic in commemoration of the game's release in Japan. Radio show hosts Hiroki Yasumoto, KENN, and Asuka Nishi along with special guest Tatsuya Kando discussed the latest release for the KINGDOM HEARTS series. The show is quite humorous and informative so have a listen on the official Square Enix Channel website!
Tatsuya Kando, director of KINGDOM HEARTS χ[chi], discussed some of the story about the upcoming social brower game and KINGDOM HEARTS HD 1.5 ReMIX's development. The game is still in development as it enters its closed beta test and that within the game five forces will be facing off against each other to obtain a light called "Lux". There are many fun battles against the Heartless and bosses and Kando hopes people will enjoy the game when it is ready.
Tatsuya Kando is best known as the director for THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU and has worked on games in the KINGDOM HEARTS and FINAL FANTASY series.
Thanks to Goldpanner, we have translations of the radio show!
Tatsuya Kando
- Co-director of KH Key and animation supervisor of KH 1.5
- Has been with Square Enix for 15-16 years
- First game was FF7
- Has worked with Nomura for a long time
HD 1.5
- It's awesome that they can make these sorts of titles now thanks to blu-ray
- Everything looks super pretty in full HD on the PS3 hardware
- It was a huge task to resize it to 16:9 aspect ratio
- The hosts remarked on how this is the third iteration of KH Chain of Memories, from GBA to PS2 to PS3!
- People who only played the GBA version of CoM are going to be absolutely stunned
- The hosts were amazed to hear how long the video volume is, they joked about it approaching the level of Schindler's List in length and congratulated Kando on having basically made a HD full length film!
- Kando recommends those who have already played KH1 to enjoy an even more beautiful version of the game, and those who played Final Mix to experience it in Japanese
- They talk about the bonus KH Key battle support sets that come with first-run editions and e-store purchases of the game (the set will come in handy when you start KH Key, with rare Sora and Riku cards you can use right away, munny that can be exchanged at moogle shops, and card draw points that are used to restore battle energy during the adventure and will come in handy during boss raids)
KH Key
- When the 'key' in 'keyblade' is written as χ, it refers to the χblade, the original keyblade mentioned in previous games such as BBS
- Everyone in KH Key isn't running around with χblades; their keyblades are people-made, though Kando would liken them to 'cheap versions' rather than fakes
- Players in KH Key each serve as heroes with their own keyblades
- As it's a little difficult to translate the world of the action-RPG series into something suitable for a PC browser game, the world of this game is more like a fairy tale than directly like the world of Kingdom Hearts that Sora and Riku appear in
- They went with mouse click commands rather than the same sort of controller-based play in other games in the series because of the nature of the platform
- Inside the world of the game, your goal is to collect light called 'Lux'. People have been divided into five large groups which are struggling over the light. The player is collecting light as a member of one of these, and we will see which one comes out on top
- To collect light you search different Disney worlds while defeating Heartless
- There is raw material scattered around that you can collect to strengthen your keyblade
- As things stand right now, they aren't planning to have player-on-player battles, it's more aimed at calling people over to co-operate
- There might be patches and updates with new features
- The biggest thing they are working on are boss raids, where you form a team and race other teams to see who can defeat a gigantic boss first etc (the hosts note that the bonus battle support sets would be useful here!)
- The game is free to play and should be simple enough for any KH fan (or Disney/FF fan who is interested in the setting) who isn't familiar with browser games to try
- There are a huge number of cards to collect (one host will try his hardest to get a Tifa card!)
- Keep an eye on the KH portal site for updates
- They are working really hard to make something fun for everyone so please look forward to it!
Source: SQEX Events, aibo_ac7 [2] via Twitter, translations thanks to Zephyr and Goldpanner
