After previous rumours that Kingdom Hearts will be featured at the Square-Enix Party 2007, it appears to be becoming less and less likely, although Yoko Shimomura will still be present. Tetsuya Nomura’s “surprise” should still be revealed and may or may not be related to Kingdom Hearts.

The Square-Enix Party 2007 will be this coming weekend (12th & 13th May) and there is now a commercial for it in Japan:

TheWertle translated yet more of the stuff in Dengeki PS Magazine (shown on FF13Vids). I’ll put a summary here of the most important points from this and other interviews:

• Nomura has stated in the past that the “New Project” MAY be a “Non-game project” and that it WILL NOT have “Kingdom Hearts” in the title.
• Nomura has now stated that this project may be an interesting side-story focusing on characters other than Sora, although Sora still has a big role.
• He should be explaining “Birth By Sleep” a bit more, what Mickey did in the World of Darkness, and how Mickey got his Keyblade.
• He’ll want to work on developing Roxas the most. He thinks it’s interesting that his birth and disappearance have both been drawn within a year.
• He wants to make this “New Project” slightly different from the Kingdom Hearts series including slight changes in the system.
• The armoured figures in the “Birth By Sleep” video are connected to Xemnas/Xehanort. There may be elaboration on this.
• Nomura has previously confirmed that after the Final Fantasy XIII games, he will be concentrating on the story of Kingdom Hearts.
• Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix+ was confirmed to be Nomura’s final PlayStation 2 game, and therefore any future Kingdom Hearts games will only be on PlayStation 3 or possibly other gaming systems.
• The “New Project” should be announced soon, although Nomura wants to keep the title a secret for awhile and tell us at just the right time.
• Multi-developing makes Nomura want to put the “New Project” on another system. If he does, he wants to decide whether to make it for PSP, Nintendo DS or mobile phones.
• Square-Enix are currently working on three projects in total. One of them is confirmed to be Final Fantasy Versus XIII, but it’s unknown what the other two are. They’re unrelated to eachother though.
• Yoko Shimomura will be attending the Square-Enix Party 2007. She’s looking forward to meeting people and asks everyone to wait patiently.

In other news, Deathspank from KH-Vids, with TheWertle’s help, has now translated some of the Reverse/Rebirth cutscenes:

Hi everyone. Thought you might be interested in seeing some pics from the Eminence concert in Sydney, Australia. It was a wonderful night and a great experience (being my first gaming concert). The piece from Kingdom Hearts, “Fantasia alla Marcia” was the final piece in the program and well worth the wait. Even better was the encore, which was recognised by the whole audience as soon as the orchestra had struck the first few notes, “One Winged Angel”.

We were lucky enough to get to meet the seven special guests of honour following the concert and get some autographs. I got a chance to meet Yoko Shimomura, composer of the Kingdom Hearts music and, even though she only speaks Japanese, she understood enough English for me to tell her I love Kingdom Hearts and ask her about if there will be a Kingdom Hearts 3. She replied “Maybe. There is very good chance.” Then I asked if she would be doing the music and she answered “I hope to be”.

I just want to say if Riku hadn’t told me about the concert, I’d never have known about it or had such a great night. Thanks Riku.

Enjoy the pics.

Aerith

(Click any image to enlarge it)

(Riku: We also have a video of the Eminence Symphony Orchestra rehearsing for this 2007 concert. Enjoy it!)

GameFAQs’ TheWertle translated an interview from FF13Vids, who got it from the Japanese magazine “Dengeki PS” (電撃PS):

Question: Your debut as director was with Kingdom Hearts. What was the process of bringing that out like?

Nomura: With the designs of Kingdom Hearts, I had designed a plot around the time that Final Fantasy VII was in production, and by the time of Final Fantasy VIII, I had full out designs. But at that point the Disney characters hadn’t completely appeared. Shinji Hashimoto came up with the idea of a story with Disney. Since, at that time, Mr. Disney was in the same building, Hashimoto would sometimes talk with him on the elevator - And I guess they worked something out.

Question: Were you the director at that time?

Nomura: No. I was polishing up the Kingdom Hearts designs and thinking of what the next line of development would be. Someone else was appointed as the director for this “Disney game”. I think until then the things I did were often pretty useless. But the Kingdom Hearts team told me “We want you to participate with us Tetsu-san. No one else would make a better director“, and so they pushed for that afterwards.

The most important information from the Japanese Magazine Gemaga is as follows:

The secret movie is connected to what is coming in the future! Nomura says it would be a shame if you miss out on it. This disproves any theories about Kingdom Hearts III itself taking place in the past, although there may be flashbacks.

A scheduled announcement of the next Kingdom Hearts Project will definitely take place after the summer! (He’s now saying this in every interview he has. He must be excited!)

Nomura states that it is too much work to work on both at the same time. So they are concentrating on completing Final Fantasy Versus XIII first to acquire the necessary elements that they can incorporate into Kingdom Hearts III. This could include characters, locations, gameplay features, or something else.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII will be the last Final Fantasy Nomura will direct, as he wants to concentrate on Kingdom Hearts series instead. So there may be a very big future for Kingdom Hearts and it sounds like it won’t stop at Kingdom Hearts III!

A journalist named Itani from Kingdom Hearts Extreme has posted part of an interview which was mostly about Final Fantasy XII, but here are the Kingdom Hearts related questions:

Itani: At the Final Fantasy XII launch in HMV, Oxford Street, my friend had a couple of questions based on Kingdom Hearts, which he asked the Square Enix Marketing Manager. You may or may not want to believe it, but this is pretty much re-assuring the Kingdom Hearts fans of future projects.

F = Friend
SEM = Square Enix Marketing Manager

F: Hi. I have to ask this on behalf of all the Kingdom Hearts fanboys in Europe. Can you PLEASE bring Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix+ to Europe?

SEM: *Laughs* We have big plans for the Kingdom Hearts series this year globally. It has become a big series for us.

F: But will Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix+ hit Europe?

SEM: I think it’s safe to say you will be pleasantly surprised around the end of the year. *grins*

F: What is the future of Kingdom Hearts like?

SEM: Well Kingdom Hearts III is going to be released on PS3 and we will see what we can do with that.

F: What about a Kingdom Hearts movie? Advent Children was sick!

SEM: Well you never know - We are good at CGI aren’t we? *grins*

F: Will we see another Kingdom Hearts game on a Nintendo platform?

SEM: Well like I said, there will be big Kingdom Hearts related announcements made this year. Please look forward to it.

F: Will Kingdom Hearts III be a new trilogy with new characters?

SEM: Can’t answer.

Whenever the Kingdom Hearts related announcements are, they won’t be at the Square Enix Party 2007, as Tetsuya Nomura confirmed himself.

In other news, a Translated/Subtitled Version of the Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix+ Promo Video is now on the internet!

KingdomHearts3.net has been kindly informed by reader Phillip Tucker that IGN have released an article in response to Dengeki PlayStation’s recent interview with Tetsuya Nomura.

“We’ve already been approached by the Disney side saying that they want us to make it,” said the busy producer regarding the next installment in the series. “What I can say at this time is ‘We have various ideas, but we’re not at the point where we can say that.’ Looking at the development schedule, after KHII FM+, the Kingdom Hearts team has Final Fantasy Versus XIII awaiting, so it’s physically impossible at the present. I feel that it’s not the right time to talk about the future of Kingdom Hearts.”

Clearly this is not confirmation that there will be a Kingdom Hearts III, but this is probably as good as we’re going to get for a while. All the FINAL FANTASY games are coming out, so they will not wish to overly congest their market.

More soon, KH3 fans!

Sources: Mr Tucker, IGN, Dengeki PlayStation.

Some of the KINGDOM HEARTS 3 and the FINAL FANTASY NET users have recently noticed a problem when registering on the community forums. We have been told that it appears that they are not signed in after their initial login to the FINAL FANTASY NET forums. This is not actually the case; though people do not appear logged in, they in fact are. Simply click ‘HOME’ again after logging in, and it will show you as logged in. We’re sorry for this minor bug.

For users who have not joined up to the forums yet, please join ffnet.org/forum/ today!

Well, as many of you will have noticed, the forum had some big problems. A number of your clever folk realised it was a trojan (an exploit whereby someone could externally play around with any of our network-wide SQL databases.

Therefore, we had to move to our big brother (sister?) site, Final Fantasy Net’s forums.

They are great fun and should be even better than the KH3.org ones, with many more options.

Please re register, I am sorry you have (temporarily only!) lost your post counts and PMs, but such was the severity of the problem as to render it necessary.

Please sign up to the new forum today. Click here to go to the forum!

Sorry about the inconvenience.

Postscript: could all moderators and the forum members “Kairi” and “end game” pm me when you sign up to the new forum.

We’re going to open up affiliation for other Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy sites (or any RPG or gaming site, perhaps!). There are no strict rules yet as we’ve not set up official affiliation regulations, we just suggest that you submit sites that are frequently updated and are of reasonable quality.

Send applications to webmaster@kingdomhearts3.net. More soon!