Summary
- Kingdom Hearts can be deceptively difficult, but director Tetsuya Nomura revealed that certain elements were “more hardcore” before release.
- In an old, recently unearthed, interview in an issue of Hyper PlayStation 2 Magazine from 2003, Nomura reveals that Kingdom Hearts had to be toned down.
- Nomura even says that comparisons to the infamously difficult Takeshi’s Challenge were made during development, in regard to certain puzzles.
Kingdom Hearts can be deceptively difficult. Sure, it features Donald, Goofy, and a teenager that helps save the world through the power of love and friendship, but the first game has plenty of foes ready and waiting to turn Sora into mush. Phantom, Kurt Zisa, and Sephiroth are all extremely tricky fights, the latter renowned for having a health bar that doesn’t even fit on the screen properly.
It can be very easy to get lost, with no mini-map or directions to follow, but director Tetsuya Nomura believed these “hardcore” elements are what made the game fun. In an old interview from an issue of Hyper PlayStation 2 Magazine from 2003 – which was recently unearthed by Shmuplations (thanks GamesRadar) – Nomura talked about some of the more difficult elements of the game before its release, calling it a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”.
Kingdom Hearts Devs Had To Tone Down “More Hardcore” Puzzles
“My concept for Kingdom Hearts was that it would be a game with a lot of depth, something you could play for a long time,” says Nomura. “I wanted to try making a game where the player could do anything. Even though Kingdom Hearts is a Disney game, there are quite a few “hardcore” elements that remain.”
Nomura then, rather surprisingly, admits that Kingdom Hearts used to be “more hardcore” than it already is, referencing the infamous game Takeshi’s Challenge as an indicator as to just how vicious some of the game’s puzzles were.
“It was actually MORE hardcore in the beginning. We had some puzzles in there that would make you go, ‘what is this, Takeshi’s Challenge?’ We lowered the difficulty a bit, but it still has more bite to it than most mainstream releases today,”
Of course, the difficulty of Kingdom Hearts would go on to fluctuate pretty massively over the years, with Kingdom Hearts 3 being the easiest of the three mainline titles by far, if we take away the DLC. You would hope that Kingdom Hearts 4 – whenever Square Enix decides to show us more of it – will have a bit more of that bite to it. I’m just hoping that Attractions get kicked to the curb.
