Lightning? Vaan? Noctis? Clive? We have Donald, so no thanks.
Back in the day gamers talked about the new RPG that combined Final Fantasy with Disney characters. It was crazy! It was wild! This is what you can imagine! It’s a great novelty.
The Kingdom Hearts franchise became less about Final Fantasy mashups and more about its original cast of characters. Sora was the star of Final Fantasy, and cameos from Final Fantasy series gradually became less common with the release of mainline games (and many sequels).
It culminated with Kingdom Hearts III which had very few Final Fantasy appearances (untiltile the Re:Mind DLC). You won’t be happy if you expected that the next entry – Kingdom Hearts 4 would change this.
In an interview with Game Informer series director Tetsuya Namura admitted that Final Fantasy characters were not represented in the RPG series. She also stated that the company will ‘try to find a balance’ between legacy characters and Kingdom Hearts’ crew going forward.
He explained that many fans believe Kingdom Hearts is a collaboration between Disney characters, Final Fantasy characters. “But that’s not what Kingdom Hearts is, that’s not my view.
Nomura stated that recognizable Final Fantasy characters were present to “lend an hand for everyone [to get to know] the Kingdom Hearts characters better.” This functionality seems a bit redundant now that we are familiar with Sora and the others via the games.
Nomura says that when we first released the title, there were only a handful of original Kingdom Hearts characters. “When they interacted with Disney characters that were well-known and loved, I felt like nobody really knew these characters so it was difficult for them to hold their ground.”
Will we see more FF characters on Kingdom Hearts 4 then? It doesn’t sound all that unlikely.
Nomura says, “That’s something that we definitely are thinking about.” It’s difficult to predict what the balance will be with all the original characters we have, and how it will play in Kingdom Hearts 4. Alex will be pleased. He has been saying that the series should focus once again on its Disney worlds to truly impress him.