Better late than never! Famitsu's interview with Tetsuya Nomura, which released just after the concert in Los Angeles last month where a brand new Kingdom Hearts III trailer premiered, has been translated thanks to Goldpanner!
--The audience was super pumped up at the concert, right? What was it like watching from the wings?
Nomura: I said this up on stage too, but the performance was designed so that the music matched the cinematics down to the scene transitions, and I was just watching while being blown away by how perfectly they pulled it off. I also thought that Ms Shimomura's piano performance has only been getting better and better with every country we perform at. We are in Los Angeles now, by the final performance in Osaka I bet she will be flawless! (Laughs.)
--That's a lot of pressure on Ms Shimomura (laughs). When you went on stage, everyone cheered even louder, didn't they?
Nomura: I'd planned on talking about the update and content patches for Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5+2.5 ReMIX while I was up on stage, but I got overwhelmed by all the cheering and skipped it accidentally (dry laugh).
--What is in the content patch?
Nomura: We have added theatre mode to KH, and added a bit of cutscene to KH 358/2 Days. We had been working on those for a while, but it took a little time to finish, which is how it ended up being timed with this.
--The reaction to the trailer you released was amazing, too, wasn't it? I heard that you won't be any new trailers or announcements regarding KH3 at E3 this year, so it was a nice surprise for Kingdom Hearts fans to see before then.
Nomura: I think a lot of people have misunderstood. Whether or not we use the conferences for each platform to release information depends on what we want to do with the game itself, and since the concert in Los Angeles was going to be around the same time we decided to have it debut there instead.
--I think this way was really nice for fans, much better than having it debut among a lot of other rapid-fire presentations at a conference. The battle clips were loaded with more keyblade transformations and action sequences than we have seen so far, and I was left with the impression that the worlds were rich and varied.
Nomura: But, this time we only showed battle clips from the Hercules world.
--Oh, really? It looked rich in variety, so I guess I thought it was scenes from various worlds.
Nomura: Also, there's a Japanese version and a North American version of this trailer, and the battle scenes were taken from actual play videos of each, so they're actually not the same footage. We used similar scenes, but if you watch them side by side you'll see the difference. I think hardcore fans will get a kick out of checking it out.
--Also, D23 Expo 2017 is coming up next month, isn't it?
Nomura: We've already finished editing the clip we plan to unveil at D23. It's even longer than the one we just released, and on top of that, nearly everything it features is new, so please look forward to it.
Lastly, we were able to talk with Nomura a little about the information he is going to have debut at D23. I was like, "NO FREAKING WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I was losing my mind, there in Hollywood deep in the evening. It's amazing. Super amazing, everyone! I am not exaggerating!! Yeah, this is set to be a god among games. I'm sorry to be all smug like this, but of course I can't write about it here. But, I did receive permission to write about my own reaction, so there you have it! Maybe I actually just made things more confusing. Well, make sure you pay attention to the KH3 news releasing at D23!! When it's been officially announced, we here at Famitsu dot com will of course report on it right away, so for more details, look forward to the Weekly Famitsu published around that time!
If you enjoy Goldpanners translations, please considering buying her a cup of coffee sometime!
