Kingdom Hearts 1 Data Is Lost; Square Had To “Recreate Everything” For HD

By Ishaan . June 25, 2013 . 10:40pm

During E3, Square Enix conducted an internal interview with Kingdom Hearts director Tetsuya Nomura, during which Nomura answered a few questions about Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix and Kingdom Hearts III. You can watch this below:

 

 

Here are a few tidbits from the talk:

 

  • The original data for Kingdom Hearts is lost.

 

  • Nomura: “Kingdom Hearts 1 was created a long, long time ago, so actually the original data was lost. So, we had to research and we had to dig out from the actual games available, and recreate everything for HD. We had to recreate graphics, and it was actually not that easy.”

 

  • Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix has two games because Nomura feels HD Remasters shouldn’t be made too often.

 

  • Master Xehanort and Ansem are Nomura’s favourite characters.

 

  • Kingdom Hearts III will have Final Fantasy characters once again.

 

  • Nomura knows people want to play as King Mickey.

 

  • Nomura once again says this will be the final battle against Xehanort.

 

In the second half of the interview, Nomura discusses Final Fantasy XV. You can read our summary of that here.



  • Spider-Man

    Hope the character from FF isn’t from the XIII games.

    • DesmaX

      “But everyone loves Lightning!!!!” – Square-enix

      • Warboss Aohd

        i hated all o’ dem but Sazh an’ Snow, an’ i only liked da latter because he wasn’t serious.

      • Chiupon

        Granted, she’s very popular in Japan and I know a lot of people who praise her but not the game she’s from — She also garnered a lot of fans due to Dissidia.

      • Wait what

        But I do love Lightning, and her being in Kingdom Hearts would be awesome.

    • Would that even matter in a KH game? TBH a XIII charcter would be proably done decent justice combined with the KH battle system. Plus, It’s almost a definite that a XIII character will appear.

      • Wappuli

        Pretty much this.
        As much as i hate those games, I still don’t see how having a character from there to do any harm to KH.

        • Djanjo Nakkuruzu Fortis

          It doesn’t I don’t think that was the root of the issue,more like a segway to the unavoidable truth: Much the way FF7 changed a lot for how people look at FF 13 has once again changed things the question now is…was it for the better or worse. Which is subjective and something that boils down to preference.

    • Zeik56

      I’m 100% sure there will be FFXIII characters in 3. It’s not even a question.

    • candydisco

      Looks like Lightning is in it.

    • Jesus Christ! do people HATE XIII that much?

      • Spider-Man

        I personally do after sitting through XIII and XIII-2.The cast I hated, not so much the battles.

        • It’s the reverse for me.
          The cast and story was an interesting combo. The battles, however, seemed to funnel your actions into a set strategy with repetitive animations and a fraction of abilities that made previous battle systems more enjoyable.

          • Laer_HeiSeiRyuu

            But everyone agrees that the world is poorly designed

          • “Everyone” is quite a broad application. I believe the world was quite beautiful. The way the world would connect from point A to point B was my main critisism with XIII’s world.

          • KingRuff

            Poorly designed doesn’t mean ugly. You just agreed with him. Going from point A to point B is the world’s design.

          • Sorry, no…

        • Atmey

          Both were “okay” but not as close as previous FF games, I like battles more the cast too. I don’t blame the characters, it is more the settings they go thrown in, make it feels like the world is really small, travel between 2 planets, then time travel over thousands of years and everything is very similar. Chrono Trigger done time travel better.

      • Tiredman

        Hate no, dislike yes, hate the possibility of future FF’s becoming what the XIII franchise is more than the games themselves. Squeenix making 3 games in this franchise just made me and a lot of other folks spooked at the possibility that they have finally lost the last vestiges of when they were Square only. Course, then FF All The Bravest came out and it was the nail in the coffin on that thought.

        • Ric Vazquez

          I know what you’re saying, I also think the company was better when it was Squaresoft and they made games like FFVII, Xenogears etc.

        • CirnoLakes

          Some people only dislike Final Fantasy XIII. Many people outright hate it. It is one of the most infamous games to come out in the last decade or so.

      • Wappuli

        Yes they do, and I don’t get how you are still suprised by it even though they have been doing so ever since the release in 2009.

        • I hardly doubt they started hating the game since 2009, come on. As far as I know the only reason why people would hate it because it’s been delaying Versus aka XV…and also it was linear as fuck which wasn’t really a bad. They fixed all that in XIII-2 which people HATED because it only had 2 party member and you get to recruit monster…again wasn’t a bad thing.

          I’m not saying I want there to be a 4th XIII game but at least give the series a damn chance rather than hating it blindly. You may be sick of XIII as I am with VII but at least I’m not going around preaching how much I dislike the game as if it makes ANY different. Saying rubbish how adding in XIII characters to KH could/would damage the franchise.

          • Wappuli

            They really did, right after release used game stores where stormed by people bringing it in because it was so bad and price for it got pummeled pretty fast. Just after a couple of months stores where offering ~1500 yen for a used one and price for brand new was halved (from ~9000 yen to 4000 yen). After just half a year stores were offering a generous 300 yen for a used and many just refuse to take them in anymore.
            There was even one store offering brand new ones for 500 yen.(For 10 customers only but still…)

            As for reasons for hating the game. Delay for for versus 13 wasn’t really an issue back then yet. People hated it for linearity, story, characters, battle system, lack of citys, forced partymembers and more, pretty much for not being a Final Fantasy anymore.
            Whenever you find those as a bad thing or not is a matter of opinion. If you don’t mind, then good for you, more games for you to play. But you really shouldn’t go around forcing your opinion and saying that they aren’t so bad, for someone they might just be.
            I know that many who hate these also attack people who like them and they aren’t any better.

            Only “real” problem about FF13 was that they made it a numbered FF instead of spin-off, that really didn’t do any good to anyone.

          • Herok♞

            I am so tired of people saying stuff, like FF13 isn’t a FF game because it is there isn’t one thing that makes something FF

          • Wappuli

            I can agree with you mostly there.
            Sure there is something that makes a game “Final Fantasy” other that just a name, but FF13 surely has enough to be called FF.

          • Djanjo Nakkuruzu Fortis

            Actually the formula was pretty much consistent all the way to 13-2 but the way it was handled doesn’t FEEL like Final Fantasy, Just as people often say 358/2 KH doesn’t FEEL like KH at least not in the very literal sense of most other KH titles. even Chain of Memories and Re:Chain with the cards feels more KH that 358/2.

            HOW you do something is just as important as WHAT you do.

          • CirnoLakes

            It is a hated game.

            It has a tiny minority of fans. And some “true fans” who defend the game as great despite it being one of the least respected Japanese RPGs in the last few years. It is so hated that it turned even some of the most die hard Final Fantasy fans against Square Enix as a company. And gave people who didn’t much care for Final Fantasy in the first place an excuse to bash Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy XIII hurt the Final Fantasy brand.

            Also, people didn’t hate Final Fantasy XIII-2 that much. It was at least more respected than Final Fantasy XIII.

          • Anime10121

            People just love to hate XIII because it’s what’s “in”. I personally enjoyed XIII and had a blast with XIII-2. XIII wasn’t my favorite Final Fantasy, but its FAR from the worst.

          • mike dickson

            no offense but are you stupid 13 did not delay 15 one bit they were developing 15 at the same time 13 was food for the final fantasy fans they had to give them something including 13 was developed before 15

      • Because 13-1 was awful and 2/3 of the game is grinding adamantoises. Part 2 was a great game though.
        I would only dislike (not hate) 13 if it weren’t crammed down our throats in desperation of us as fans to love it.
        Mind you I gave them a chance before I judged them. Platinumed them both, will buy 13-3 though and I played all prior games. If Square Enix hadn’t focused on in so much we could had 2 other FF games with a good probability of one being awesome.

      • Aoshi00

        I have to say I understand those who didn’t like 13 for many of the things Kakkakikkare mentioned below, I was one of them.. I totally digged 13-2 though because it had more exploration like the past FFs and Chrono Trigger, truly an improvement, and now looking forward to Lightning Returns.. the worst thing about 13 was probably the datalog for me (the extra info should be complimentary, not the way to tell a story).. Overall, I don’t mind the 13 chars, but I really didn’t like the first game as a whole.. it was a missed opportunity, if there were some more towns/exploration, and the Episode Zero prologue novel was incorporated into the actual game, it would’ve been a lot more memorable.. other than the graphics, I thought Lost Odyssey and the Last Story were more worthy of the FF name.. again, I liked 13-2 though. Ironically I only started to not dislike 13 after reading Ep Zero, which wasn’t even available in Eng officially..

        • I understand them to an extent but really most of the time they just simply over exaggerating their hatred towards this XIII. “Don’t let Lightning be in my KH”, “it will surely ruin the franchise”, etc etc.

          I’m all in agreeing with you about XIII, it wasn’t their greatest, nor their worst (all the bravest comes into mind). I just thought the execution was bad! While they sold me on the battle, which is a big step from traditional system. I just didn’t think the story was all that good compare to something like VI or IX. I never cared one bit about the datalog, it didn’t serve much purpose in the game. I do wish they done something like those novel (episode 0) which were solely there for individual character development and their perspective on what was going on during the story. I would have liked there to be more town/exploration :/

          • Aoshi00

            Unfortunately I guess the first one just made too bad a first impression, and then people didn’t try the 2nd and upcoming 3rd one.. I liked the ideas, but the execution was definitely bad on many levels (I don’t think Toriyama’s a very good director).. as a game it was okay, but a FF is not supposed to be “not that bad”, it should’ve been “really good”, even Lost Odyssey let us control the airship and enter it.. yeah, lots of good character development that made you care for them only in the Ep 0 novel.. also Cocoon’s history in the datalog, would’ve been better if they were better incorporated into the game (it worked for Remember Me talking about how Neo Paris came to be)… like how X was via towns and NPCs you encountered along the journey. Just 13 by itself, w/o the prologue novel or 13-2 really left a bad taste in my mouth though unfortunately.. also Ep Zero was actually made into 2 drama CDs too which I got.. But yes, 13 really was an entry hated by many in the history of FF :(.. 13-2 redeemed it for me, now 15 seems to be great too..

      • mike dickson

        because the game isn’t final fantasy its a completely different thing from final fantasy and i personally hate 13 for that specfic reason why i hate the game and the story is so bad imo no offense

    • TaintedSeraph

      Lightning has already been confirmed to be a party member in Kingdom Hearts III. She’s actually a keyblade wielder as well.

      • roydgriffin

        Noooo… nononono…
        No.. no no no no no…
        No? NO?? NOOO?!?
        NONONONONONO!!!
        NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

        • Derek E Nay

          /hug.

          I feel your pain…

        • Göran Isacson

          Dude. Ask for sources before you light any torches.

          • roydgriffin

            I know it’s not real, it was meant to be a joke. ;)

          • Göran Isacson

            Aaah, gotcha. Sad to say that I see such reactions so often, I can’t really tell the difference between when they are genuine or sarcastic. My bad.

          • Göran Isacson

            Ah, my bad. I’ve seen these kind of reactions so often that I don’t really know if they’re real or sarcastic.

          • roydgriffin

            I hear you man! ;)

    • While I don’t hate XIII… I can agree. I’m still waiting for a Disney Sword in the Stone world (after all we have Merlin in the games) with some FFIV presence myself.

    • Jahred Down

      I’d be extremely happy if it was Sahz. Everyone else, meh.

      • Warboss Aohd

        Sazh iz da only salvageable character in dat series.

    • you know someone is gonna show up. hopefully its vanille and fang…as a lesbian couple in radiant garden.

      • Detrimont

        Best. Idea. Ever.

      • Göran Isacson

        (Late comment is superlate I know), but if they show up it would probably be at Disney Castle… because Disneyland Tokyo allows lesbian weddings now!

    • Sardorim

      Would be foolish if LIghtning didn’t at least show up considering her final game is coming out soon.

    • Unlimax

      Brace yourself ..Your worst nightmares has arrived *Facedesk*
      http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk289/Kai_Alkaria/Facedesk.gif

      • Shady Shariest

        Oh, she looks…Cute…Way better than that forced Emo in the original series :P

      • Virevolte

        That’s plain madness…!

      • Chiupon

        i’m actually really excited???
        Loli Lightning is really cute i can’t even
        EDIT: gdi that’s fake as shit i’m so upset rn i can’t
        DONE WITH YOU UNLIMAX

      • Anime10121

        Thats fake, it was a fan mockup from when DDD was announced.

      • Nightmare637

        I’m not to fond of XIII but I do like this desin(yes I know its fake)

      • d19xx

        …is that a dildo?

    • Herok♞

      I am sure both Lightning and Noctis will show up, just like it was cloud and squall who showed up before

    • Solomon_Kano

      I wouldn’t mind having XIII characters. In fact, I hope see some representation there. I just wouldn’t want Light herself. Gimme Sazh, Snow, Hope, or Fang, and I’m cool. They just better not be the only new FF added to KH.

      Unfortunately though, having contributed to her design, Light’d be the most likely character for Nomura to select.

  • Il s’agit de vieilles nouvelles…

  • Jah-keem York

    This should just be the end of the series, not the end of the Xehanort saga honestly. After Xehanort ends, it’s kind of hard ot come up with a new threat since..literally everything pointed to Xehanort being the true culprit. That and I’d like to finally see this series end. It’s not because, and I’ll admit I don’t like Kingdom Hearts as much anymore but I will pick up the HD Collections. However, Nomura has proven time and time again with Versus, and TWEWY that he has a mindset that fans can easily jump behind and enjoy. I want him to focus more on original projects.

    • Zeik56

      I actually want to see it continue after this “saga”, because this whole Xehanort business has grown out of hand. I want to see the series move onto something else. Even if that means no Sora.

      • Rayhan PromisedGallery

        I can’t really imagine the new villain to feel “fresh” and greater after all the crap Xehanort has pulled. (destroying worlds, stealing bodies, making replica, time travel, etc)

        So i personally fine if it is ended in KH3. Although i won’t mind if it is still continuing, though i won’t really looking forward to it. I imagine it would be more pale like DBGT compared to DBZ

        • Zeik56

          You make it sound like Xehanort has encompassed every possible villain out there. Villains are a lot more than just the crazy evil mastermind stuff they do.

      • I always believed that Nomura stated that Kingdom hearts after the Xeonhart saga would see a new keyblade wielder. But I have been told by several gaming sites that this is not the case.

        • Sardorim

          They already have Lea as a new Keyblade Wielder….

        • KHSoraKeyBlade

          Yep, he said something along the lines of, “KH3 is not the last KH game and that Sora will still be the main character”.

          I guess we’ll just have to see what happens in KH3 to see why Sora will remain the main character for the next saga.

          • Anime10121

            Yep he specifically said that much like Final Fantasy X is Tidus’ story, Kingdom Hearts is Sora’s story, and he will remain the main character/focus of the series.

    • Sardorim

      Balance will be out of wack after this game I’m sure. No one says Light has to always be good. Smashing Darkness into nothing could easily pave the way for “Light” to be the next enemy as Sora has to restore balance between Light and Darkness.

  • EtherealEarth

    It would be ironic and strangely hilarious if Noctis appears in KH3 and that KH3 comes out before FFXV.

    • IMHO, no and no.
      Noctice may be a bit too mature to clear Disney standards and practices. And Versus is the guinea pig for tuning KH3’s battle system as told by Nomura.

      • Zeik56

        Er, how is Noctis too mature? What little they’ve showed of the game didn’t seem all that “mature”.

        Besides, it’s not like they have to be 100% loyal to the source. Pretty much every FF character that has appeared in KH has been modified somewhat. Zack is a good example.

        • Elemiel

          Auron would be another example.

          • KingRuff

            You beat his whole argument with five words! That deserves a congratulations or something.

        • Although true that they could alter the character, The core of the story and message dont seem to align too well with the light-hearted approach I have witnessed in KH. I personally would love to see Noct in KH. But when I consider the edits that have been made to comply with Disneys demands in the past, I feel they may raise a brow with a character such as Noctice. I remember the original trailer for Versus (which has now been redone with Luminous) which depicted Noctice in a battle with soldiers causing damage in a gruesome manner and depicting gore and slightly over agressive battle techniques not traditionally found in the FF series. Maybe with the titles rebranding, they have softened the content which may allow for the implementation of Noct in a KH.
          But given the history of Disney’s standards I could see them deciding not to include him if they were basing there decisions on the more violent depiction of Noctice in the E3 2006 trailer.

          • Zeik56

            Disney actually has little to do with the design decisions of Kingdom Hearts. Nomura has stated they are actually quite hands off with the series. Those alterations are largely Nomura’s doing.

            I’m not saying he will be in it, but I see absolutely no reason the content of 15 would prevent it. I mean, Sephiroth is in the game, and what he does in FF7 is worse than anything we’ve seen Noctis do. Hell, it’s even vaguely implied that he kills Zack at the end of Birth by Sleep.

      • Heavenly_King

        dude if FFVIII was made during this time, Squall would be almost the same as Noctis; even Cloud would also be like Noctis, in terms of “maturness” and yet both of them are in KH.

    • Sardorim

      Cameo to help bring awareness to their game makes sense. They also will need a fresh line up of FF characters as FF7 seems to be winding down now with Cloud set up to finally end Sephiroth thanks to Tifa’s light and after that I don’t see any reason for either to stick around over retiring together to maybe raise kids.

  • Lumi

    Am I the only one surprised that their data is lost? I won’t be happy if I was in the dev team…

    • Zeik56

      Not really. It’s not that uncommon.

    • MrSirFeatherFang

      Maybe since it was made before the Square and Enix merger the restructuring got it lost in the process? I don’t know what goes on with keeping data for old games, but KH was like 10 years ago in the early 2000s. It just reminds me of Princess Crown data being lost but that was a 2D game and it was about 16 years ago.

    • Yerld_CK

      Due to data size (runs into the petabytes, even for 8-10 year old games), many studios opted not to archive original, high-resolution assets. I wouldn’t be surprised if Square chucked everything out, aside from source code and master disks.

      • Lumi

        Thanks for clearing up about the grahical assets, but from here it actually sounds like MORE than graphics are lost…

    • Suzaku

      It’s actually not uncommon at all. In the past, there was never really much consideration of preserving the development data for games, or even any intention of rereleasing games for future generations (let alone with enhanced graphics).

      That’s actually contributed to a lot of the hassle with virtual console and other similar rereleased of old games on new hardware.

    • Tatsuya1221

      This is the main reason atlus said that they could never translate any port of the original devil summoner, it’s source code is lost, this is unfortunately quite common, even with high profile games.

      • Ric Vazquez

        Sad…

      • bigevilworldwide

        Thats better than the crap Konami pulled with the Silent Hill HD collection….Nobody should ever use incomplete code that was never debugged to make an HD collection

    • Ric Vazquez

      I would be ultra pissed if I was one of the developers

    • Sean ‘Geg’ Reddie

      It’s also to do with how developers and publishers back then didn’t expect their code or assets to be ever used again, the game was done and complete. That’s pretty much the case as well, and it’s why nowadays everything is archived.

  • samsneeze

    Oh Square, you so silly.

  • MrSirFeatherFang

    Well at least 1.5 ReMix didn’t turn up like Silent Hill 2 & 3. Though if HD Remasters shouldn’t be made too often we should not be expecting another one with KHII and/or BBS.

    • Nightmare637

      pretty sure he kinda confirmed a 2.5 awhile back saying “it would be strange if there waen’t one.”

      • MrSirFeatherFang

        yeah, they basically confirmed it at their E3 conference… but I know I’m just in denial about how SE just did it to get more money. (of course the developers need to go through a lot too. I don’t think they outsourced this.)

  • dragoon_slayer12

    I seen this when they streamed it live. Xehanort is my favorite villain ever (and all his variations). But individually, I think Xemnas is the best, but I LOVE Billy Zane’s performance as Ansem. I was so disappointed he didn’t come back for Xemnas (being the same person really). Truly an underrated actor.

  • Tom

    It’s hard to imagine where those data went… They said the same for Silent Hill 2 HD remake, that’s what they covered why the fog looked so sh1tty.

    • $36598391

      agreed, the lack of fog in Silent Hill 2 and 3 HD was pathetic

  • Now I understand why VersusXIII took so long…

  • Hopefully Vincent Valentine appears as one of the new FF characters for KH3.

    Heck, even Reno. But, to learn that the very first KH game for 1.5 was remade from ground up is rather an unexpected and surprising fact.

  • Andrew A

    How do you lose that kind of data? Couldn’t they have ripped it from a Kingdom Hearts disc? Isn’t that what Bluepoint does?

    • Dude, what? That’s like saying “If you want to make a remastered Blu-ray of Star Wars, just rip the VHS tape, it’s already got everything you need.”

    • CirnoLakes

      Elliot T. already said things well for me.

      But an essential difference is that games like Kingdom Hearts are optimized for console systems like the the PlayStation 2. Meaning anything that wouldn’t fit there doesn’t exist in that version. Furthermore you’re not going to have data that can be easily accessed and edited, and certainly isn’t the original asset.

      Say you made a CG model in Blender. The CG model files and what is in the console version of your game are going to be very different. And the ones in the console version are not going to be nearly as fleshed out and workable from an editing standpoint as whatever is in the console version.

      • Andrew A

        Ah, so this isn’t anything like that whole Silent Hill HD ordeal?

  • Freya2012

    …play as King Mickey. Really? Gave me Lea instead :)

    • Djanjo Nakkuruzu Fortis

      Like that’s honestly a question with the end of 3D. Don’t you remember the old days with KH2 and Roxas formerly the Blonde Haired Kid? Rule nothing out, anything is fair game and anything can happen.

  • Bobby Jennings

    “The original data was lost”

    Pfft, hard to believe that honestly.

    • Wake

      Silent Hill HD Collection.

    • Sonic 1 Genesis.

      • Bobby Jennings

        Oh, never knew those games were made by Square Enix.

        • Mr_SP

          Sure they’re not… But Square Enix isn’t the height of competency. If they say they don’t have the original source code of the game that they’re re-releasing, then they’re probably more likely to have lost it, than to have pretended to lose it. If KH1.5 wasn’t getting released, it might have been an excuse, but it’s clearly done.

      • RisukuAozora

        Except they didn’t lose that. There was an iPod classic version (that controlled so-so) that I’m pretty sure ran with the original coding. S1 Genesis’ problem was that it tried to use Sonic Advance’s engine but forgot about collision detection, Sonic’s size, etc.

        • Except the iPod version of Sonic was done by Backbone. They probably did a better job at porting it. Stealth ported the first zone of Sonic 1 perfectly to the GBA, but he probably spent years taking the games apart in order to do it.

          Either that, or the GBA doesn’t have blast processing. :P

    • Tatsuya1221

      Shin Megami Tensei Devil Summoner
      Probably zone of the enders HD collection.

      I know there are more, including some SE ones, but i cannot remember them off the top of my head, that said it was quite common in the past for companies to lose a game’s source code, much less the entire project data.
      I only hope final fantasy XII didn’t suffer that fate too.

  • Warboss Aohd

    dey seem ta ‘lose data’ alot.

  • Frii

    Please feature Ramza in the FF cameo

  • Guest

    Xehanort again? Wtf gives us a new villian please.

    • pressstart

      Anyone who played the KH BBS and DDD already knew that. Plus… they already said this is the end of the Xehanort saga.

    • Haseyo

      You really didn’t play DDD, did you? It basically spells out “This is the final battle against Xehanort.”

  • ShawnOtakuSomething

    The original data was lost? should have sent data Sora to find it, silly

    • Uso Ewin

      Either way it still got… RE:Coded

      • melvin2898

        You rock for this.

  • d19xx

    I wonder why gaming companies can’t hire programmers that are great at reverse engineering? There are tons of them in emulation and communities that rips assets from games, such as models resource.

    • CirnoLakes

      What’s sad about things is that such wouldn’t even be necessary if games like that were released for the PC with original assets involved to begin with. A lot of PC games will just throw in the original models and players can use them if their PC can handle it or whatnot.

      And emulation would have never been necessary in the world to begin with if people just released games on the PC to begin with. I can’t think of many reasons that emulators were even developed to begin with, other than the fact many people prefer to play console games on a PC.

      Then there’s the fact that most games are extremely closed source and proprietary. I don’t think it’s that healthy for the Japanese game industry to create a new game engine for just about every new game and then close it off from anyone or ever even being used again. Unreal Engine did the exact opposite and it has done very well for them as a company.

      It is the fear of piracy and the need to keep games locked down to consoles not accessible by fans that is actually doing more harm to software and assets staying alive to be enjoyed and sold to future generations to begin with. I feel like a relationship with more equity and trust between developers and fans would be much better. It wouldn’t be so bad if publishers and developers could all be trusted to take care of their own assets. But sadly they have shown otherwise.

  • SirRichard

    Looks like companies are going to need to get better at storing their code, but at least unlike Konami, Square didn’t just throw alpha code at their devs and say “here, finish this” and ship whatever came out of it.

    • Kelohmello

      When did Konami do that? I don’t really know much about their practices.

      • SirRichard

        They did that with Silent Hill 2 HD; they lost the finished source code, and instead handed the devs the alpha code and told them to fill in the blanks as best they could. And it being the alpha code, there were a hell of a lot of blanks.

        The game was a buggy mess with things like the famous fog effect missing entirely, but Konami had it shipped out in that state anyway.

        • Kelohmello

          Wow. That’s really, really seedy.

    • RisukuAozora

      But we haven’t seen an HD re-release from Square-Enix yet. I think that’s a bit of unfair judgment, even if Konami did release a botched Silent Hill HD Collection (that they sort of fixed… on PS3 only).

      • Solomon_Kano

        Well, KH HD’s been out in Japan for a while and the consensus from overseas has been pretty positive.

  • Final battle against Xehanort but not the final game? Interesting. Also that title scared me for a moment haha. I was like “Oh no what do you mean the data was lost!? What does this mean for the game!?” Then calmed down when I read the rest xD.

    I can’t wait for KH3! Man I never though I’d be saying that again. It feeeels gooood~ (●´⌓`●)

    • Anime10121

      Nomura’s been saying that for years. Kingdom hearts 3 is the last game in the Xehanort/ Seeker of Darknesss/ Dark Seeker saga, and the story will continue with Sora as the main character.

      • I missed that part somewhere along the road of time… So forgive me if a good part of this information is new to me. (♥◠‿◠)ﾉ

        • Anime10121

          Oh its no prob, just wanted to put it out there, KH is one of my favorite series, so I’ve followed every piece of info out there tooth and nail. Its understandable that not everyone else does the same :)

          Let us all just share in the excitement of OMG KH3!!!

          • Aah I see. I love Kingdom Hearts too I just haven’t kept up on a lot of the information out there ( >_<) So a good portion can slip past me haha.

            Agreed fully!!! Wooo (⌒_⌒ )/

  • sakusakusakura_nyo

    I don’t wan’t to play as Mickey Mouse.

    • Isaac Newton

      Then you remove one of the charms of KH.
      I don’t want that it’s like removing the dogs from CoD(WTF am I saying?)!

      • SunOatBoatMatadorQuattro

        I would risk my life for Call of Duty Dogs, guys! I care about him.

    • MrRobbyM

      I much rather play as guest Final Fantasy characters. Even if for just a short bit.

      • Zeik56

        …No thanks.

    • Feelmemore

      It was a neat feature in KH2 when he saved you, besides that I’m happy with playing as Sora, Riku, and the three from bbs.

  • Courtney Levi Osborn

    maybe rebuilding it will make it better? hope so

  • SunOatBoatMatadorQuattro

    “Master Xehanort and Ansem are Nomura’s favourite characters.”
    No wonder there are 10 versions of each guy

  • Unlimax

    Wai- .. Does that mean all the old games data since the merge .. are LOST !

    OH NO .. Don’t tell me this will affect Parasite Eve Data D:

    Sheesh , whoever does that is an a-hole and hates Nostalgia .

  • Aidan Murphy

    thats silly, can theynot just rip it from a game disc?

    • Kelohmello

      That’s exactly what they did. However, because this is an HD remaster, not having the source data made things alot harder because the source would have had the graphics they needed in a higher resolution and made things much easier for them. So, many things if not most things would have had to have been completely remade from scratch using examples from the original as reference… Sounds really tedious if you ask me.

    • Colonel Custard

      They can up they would be ripping an optimized model which, are terrible for upscaling as they lack the structure of the original models which would have retained their structure when upscaled.

      Think of it like this I have a 20 polygon character head model, what I’ll do then is create my maps from that “high Poly Model” then I would lower the polycount of said model to be compatible with the engine and lets say the engine supports only 8 polygons. Now that its 8 polygons most of the features that were made in the character are gone and whats left are smooth surfaces that protrude or intrude. I apply those maps from earlier and the model now looks close to the 20 count one but, only because the maps give it the allusion of depth and detail.

      So when they rip the model from the game its a low poly model and adding more polys to it only increases the surface area it does not bring back the detail of the original model.

  • Yamaneko22

    I hope that Balthier will be one of those FF characters…

    • MrRobbyM

      My mind just went wild with the design possibilities.

    • Solomon_Kano

      I would be so hype.

    • Sebastian Lothian

      I want a Noctis boss fight.

  • Donald Barnett

    Wonder if we will see noctis in there :)

  • DCBlackbird

    Ahh Xehanort one of my favorite villains along Anton Arcane, Joker and Vayne Solidor(YES I LOVED XII plot wise that is)

  • SetzerGabbiani

    One thing about this industry I don’t understand is how they lose master data. As a large company with valuable IPs, there should be backups of backups of this stuff.

    • I think they Never needed the Backups anymore so…. it lost

  • CirnoLakes

    What’s with companies losing major assets like this?

    This is one of the shortcomings of console only, proprietary, locked down software. The fans have to go an extra mile to get their hands on data and enjoy the software the way they want to. And you can’t really trust the companies who are keeping the software proprietary and console only to keep their data properly stored and backed up.

    Thus assets by companies like Square Enix feel like a ticking time bomb just waiting to be destroyed. Again, people assume that this DRM lockdown stuff isn’t so bad because the assets are always in good hands, the hands it should be in in the first place, the creators. But in actuality, it isn’t. It seems like a lot of the creators of games take worse care of their own proprietary software than their own fans.

    This is one thing I don’t like about console only proprietary software.

  • Travis

    He also said That is not the final game

  • Sonny Oranga Taing

    I hope we still get KH 2.5 with KH2: Final Mix, and a BBS:Final Mix.

  • Nintendo Fan 4 Lif3

    If it’s only graphics and not the story or anything else that was affected, I’m good. Never played the PS2 games so I’m getting 1.5 HD Remix and then gonna try to play the other games since the series is so epic. If KH III will be the end of the Xehanort saga, does that mean all new characters will come afterwards and no characters will return from the previous games then?

  • Feelmemore

    “Nomura knows people want to play as King Mickey.” No thanks I personally don’t want major sections of the story to be played through Mickey. I want to stick with Sora, Riku, Terra, Aqua, and Ven.

  • ragingmerifes

    They should ask some hackers to just crack open the original DVD.

  • MogCakes

    So 1.5 will in fact be an entirely new KH1. Hmm…

  • Steven Higgins

    I can totally see Snow (In his original or XIII-2 design because his personality changed in LR) in Olympus Coliseum (I know, I know. It’s been done to death but still) being all like “I’m a hero!”

  • Kari

    Its funny this is like the second time they did something like this. Something similar happen to FF:Tactics some years back…right?

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