Nomura On Kingdom Hearts III’s Final Fantasy Characters, Aqua’s Popularity, And Ratatouille

Kingdom Hearts III has been front and center at E3, but there are still a few things we’d like to know. Director Tetsuya Nomura was on hand for an interview and we tried to get him to clarify as much as possible. Here’s his answers to some of our burning questions. True to Nomura, there are plenty of hints to follow. 

On Final Fantasy characters…
We haven’t seen a Final Fantasy character yet in a trailer. For a series that was billed as a crossover between Disney and Final Fantasy, it seems like the latter isn’t as big a part of the series as it once was. Whether this is intentional or because he wants to surprise fans, we got straight to it and asked Nomura if Final Fantasy characters will grace this entry. “I can’t really talk about any of the characters that have not been announced or shown yet, but just looking at Kingdom Hearts 1 compared to when that was released, there’s so many different titles with Final Fantasy characters or where all of these characters come together. I don’t feel that much of necessity of bringing these characters together like I did before. However, if you could look forward to information in the future, that would be great.”

Remy from Ratatouille’s exact role…
At a recent press conference, Square Enix gave us a small glimpse at Remy from Rataouille. Fans didn’t know what to think about his role. Is it some cooking minigame, or is this an animation for using him as a link in battle? Nomura clarified that it’s a minigame and there will be a lot of these in the game. Nomura said in this one in particular you collect ingredients throughout the game and then take them to Remy for a full-course meal. If you succeed, your status increases for a duration, but if you fail nothing happens. 

On that Aqua Reveal....
If you’ve been following the series, you know that a certain trailer reveal shook the internet. When asked if Nomura was expecting the reaction it received, he said he was surprised. “We had that scene with Aqua in that announcement of Frozen, and I was actually just surprised that there was the same or more buzz surrounding Aqua because Frozen was supposed to be the big reveal. I was just surprised when people were surprised she had fallen to the darkness. I, of course, know the entirety of the storyline, so in fact, there are more surprises and some even bigger than that. I just wonder if everyone will be okay.”

More about that Gummi Ship tease…
We got our first glimpse at the Gummi Ship at this E3, which Nomura confirmed was returning last year. However, we didn’t exactly see more of it than it’s existence or how it functions, and that’s intentional. “We will have new features with the Gummi Ship, we just haven’t disclosed [them] yet,” Nomura said. “What you saw yesterday, we just wanted to confirmed it exists.”

On controlling characters other than Sora....
We’ve been able to play as characters like Roxas and more recently Riku in Dream Drop Distance. We’ve only seen Sora in command in trailers, but Nomura has hinted that Sora isn’t the only character you control. “There will be some times in the game where you’re able to control characters other than Sora, but I just won’t say which character at this moment.”

Read more from our interview, including DLC plans and what’s on the way...