May 4, 2005 - Producer Tetsuya Nomura is one of Square Enix's most respected producers, having great influence over many of the company's most highly anticipated titles. The latest issue of Japanese publication Dori Maga features a short interview with Nomura, touching upon Kingdom Hearts II and the Final Fantasy VII series.

The main focus of the interview is Kingdom Hearts II. Recently, Square Enix opened up an official Japanese website for the game following months of silence. This was followed by feature articles posted in Japan's largest game publications. Could a release date at last be nearing for the sequel?

Nomura reveals that yes, a release is indeed approaching. "The announcement of Kingdom Hearts II was actually too early," Nomura states in response to a question about the lack of information on the game. "It's not that delayed development has caused a delay in the release of the game. Recently, a release period has come into sight, and so we've started to release information."

Commenting on the current state of the game, Nomura reveals that the scenario is now complete. Voice recording has also finished, save for some fine tuning. The title isn't 100% complete, though, with Nomura revealing, "We're currently finishing up the main story -- the scenario featuring Sora and the black coated characters."

You may be bummed about the wait for Kingdom Hearts II, but based on Nomura's comments, there's a lot to look forward to. Asked about how much volume we can expect from the sequel, he responds, "Quite a bit. The volume of the story alone is about 2.5 times that of the original."

There's also quite a bit going into the animation data for the game. "For instance," explains Nomura, "when in Brave Form with red clothing and when in standard form with black clothing, the motion is completely different. This is, of course, true when fighting, but also when running. The motion for walking is about all that's shared. Of course, there are other forms besides black and red."

Nomura suggests, perhaps jokingly, that the game may actually take up more than one DVD.

Outside of these Kingdom Hearts II comments, Nomura offers an update on his other projects. First, regarding the mobile title Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII, he says, "We plan to increase the player characters by two. The story is heating up as the climax approaches, so please stick with us for a bit more."

Silencing recent worries about the state of the PSP's Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, he manages a few comments on the game. "I've drawn the art," he says with a laugh. "We're planning an interesting, previously unseen gameplay system. We announced [Crisis Core] as an action RPG, but I think it will end up as something that exceeds everyone's expectations. I personally want to get my hands on it quickly."

All has gone quiet on Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII since its unveiling for the PS2 at last year's Tokyo Game Show. "We should be able to release it earlier than most expect," assures Nomura. "It's a title that's been surrounded by a number of secrets until now, but at E3 you'll be able to get a taste of it and I think you'll be even more excited. For this game, I'm mainly doing character designs. The game is strongly influenced by Yoshinori Kitase (its producer).

Finally, Nomura offers a bit on the perpetually delayed DVD/UMD movie release, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children: "We've kept you waiting, but we should be able to announce a number of things soon. Please look forward to it."

All the games (and media products) mentioned by Nomura should make a showing in some form at E3. We'll fill you in on what we learn next week or the week after.

As revealed by Tetsuya Nomura, we recently learnt that Kingdom Hearts 2 will come out after the release of FFVII: Advent Children and within this year (2005). Yesterday the release date for the movie was confirmed to be September 14th.

This means that Kingdom Hearts 2 now has a projected release date to come out anywhere between September to December, in Japan. We do not currently know if Kingdom Hearts 2 will hit American shores this year, but its still expected to as the localization process has begun (English VA's).

Hey Everybody,

Its now officially confirmed that there is a Kingdom Hearts 2 trailer, due to the folks over at Gamespot doing a whole report about it!

Here's what is featured in the trailer:
- Scenes featuring the return of Ansem! (GS spelt Ansem wrong!)
- Pirates of the Caribbean World
- Sora & Co. inc. Jack Sparrow fighting against undead Pirates in a cavern!
- Trailer has been subtitled? (GS seem to report on what Namine says)
- Further Mulan, Beauty & Beast, Nightmare Before Xmas scenes
- Sora & Co. fighting big groups of heartless
- Footage of the "Co-op" mode, Sora-Auron & Sora-Beast
- Further Gummi Ship scenes

View Full Report

Quite a lot huh, also it features further confirmation that KH2 will be 2.5 in size compared to KH1.

Hey Everyone,

Although its strictly not E3 related, this piece of news has been revealed at the same time. To make up for FFXII's lack of "appearence" at this years E3, or so they say, Square Enix will be throwing another party for Kingdom Hearts 2 and FFXII.

The party will be on July 30th and the 31st and its pretty logical to speculate that it'll be similar to KH2's and KH:CoM's "Premiere Party" last August, so theres something to look forward to during this long wait til Winter for the game!