1UP: You’re working on so many games right now — how do you have time to work on four, five projects?

Tetsuya Nomura: Well, I’m right at my limit — I’m busy, tired, jet-lagged, and sore, but I’m going to be okay.

1UP: In what we’ve seen of Chain of Memories, you go back to a lot of the familiar Kingdom Hearts locations. Does the game also feature some new locations and levels?

Nomura: Well, first of all, yes, the...

---At the end of the previous installment, KH, there was a secret movie that was to bring light on what the sequels could be like. When you made those sequences, did you already have in mind what CoM and KHII would be like?
Nomura: In a kind of vague way yes. The most precise visions I hade were those of KHII as I already had decided that it would take place a year after KH, that the atmosphere would be different in some ways. If I was to create a KHII I wanted it to begin in the most i...

Kingdom Hearts II:Final Mix+

---Anyway, let's start with the news of this "new project" which appeared at the end of the latest trailer. Boy, were we surprised
Nomura: Thanks to everyone Kingdom Hearts has gained phenomenal popularity worldwide. That is why next year the series will be taking a new step... although for the moment I can't be any more concrete.

---If only you could do something about that (laugh). Is it something Disney specializes...

---When was the XIII Organization founded?
Nomura: The timing is when Philosopher Ansem's 6 disciples turned into Heartless. The XIII Organization is called like that just because it has recruited 13 members, but it doesn't matter if it has "XIII" in its name or not. All 13 members were already gathered in KH:COM but the members that were in Castle Oblivion still called it as the "Organization."

---Besides Xehanort, did the other 5 disciples that turned into ...

---When did KHII's development officially start?
Nomura: In the previous game, I inserted a secret movie in hopes of creating a sequel, but to actually pull it off, KHII had a number of hurdles that I had to clear first. Like our wish "to give Mickey more spotlight", we had to wait until Disney allowed that and once it's settled, then we could finally talk about KHII's development.

---Once the project started, did you have an image of how you wanted KHII to b...

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 beg...

Narrator: They're two of the biggest names in their fields. When you think of role-playing games, you think of Square. And when you think of animated films, you think of Disney. So when we heard that they were teaming up to create a new game that would combine their strengths, we couldn't wait to find out more.

Dan Winters (Vice President of Production - Disney Interactive): This started out through an elevator ride. So Square Soft's is in t...

Welcome one and all to the first ever Kingdom Hearts Insider Feature Friday! We're really excited to finally be able to start this, but enough small talk; let's get on to the brilliant works various members of the community has allowed us feature!

Starting things off is the lovely rasenth, who I assume many of you know through deviantArt! With her permission, we'd like to present to you the following:

Click to enlarge!

Thank you very much for allowing us to sho...

A rather interesting update from ESRB today. They've updated their Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] page with a summary that I'm sure some of you will find amusing! Be warned though! If you haven't been keeping up with news or seen the Disney films that are appearing the game, there will be spoilers!

Platform: Nintendo 3DS

Rating: Everyone 10+

Content descriptors: Fantasy Violence

Rating summary: This is an action role-playing game in which...