Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory walks an interesting line for the Kingdom Hearts franchise, and not just because it tackles a new genre of gameplay.
In addition to being the first title in the series designed as a rhythm action experience, and the first where Kairi provides her perspective on key events, the game is also the first to follow up the Dark Seeker Saga, an arc that spanned 18 years and the vast majority of the series’ entries.
It comes at a time when new fans finally have a chance to see everything that came before with better clarity, and old fans are eager to know what comes next for the prolific franchise.
We recently had a chance to speak with franchise director and character designer Tetsuya Nomura, producer Ichiro Hazama and co-director Masanobu Suzui about how they’ve tackled this challenge, and what fans new and old can expect from the title.
Keenan McCall: What inspired the creation of Melody of Memory? Was it an idea that the team had been contemplating for a while now, or was it a more recent idea that had come up?
Ichiro Hazama: The main concept of it was floating around since about five years ago when Mr. Suzui and I were talking about how ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be really cool to do a Theatrhythm with Kingdom Hearts?’ We were talking about it, but time passed and (the concept) kind of went away.
It took form when we started to talk about it again and Mr. Nomura joined the conversation. Then the discussion went on further about “Well, we want to make this a Kingdom Hearts title. How do we make it Kingdom Hearts?” That’s when the project kicked off and development for it started in earnest.
Keenan McCall: How has it taken shape as a Kingdom Hearts rhythm game versus a Theatrhythm Final Fantasy game? Is it taking notes from Theatrhythm, or is it striving to have its own feel and style?
Masanobu Suzui: So in the end, we tried to go for something that is completely different. When we first started the project, when we thought about what makes Kingdom Hearts unique, it had to be that 3D element.
So with Melody of Memory, we didn’t go with the stylized characters you may see in a Theatrhythm game. You’re actually seeing Sora in the game, and the action is going to be just as exhilarating as some of the mainline titles. That was our starting point. We took that as our central core and idea.
Plus, we recently celebrated [the series’] 15th anniversary. There was a jukebox music site that was dedicated to it, and the key visual there was a great inspiration as to the style we wanted to pursue.
Of course, with the developers, we do have the knowledge and the know-how we have garnered through the development of the Theatrhythm games and the technical aspects of the games. But we wanted to take that know-how and combine it with the excitement and the emotional aspects of the music of Kingdom Hearts.
There may be some similarities with that sort of general Theatrhythm vibe, but we did want to make this unique to Kingdom Hearts, and how we do show it off as a unique Kingdom Hearts title.
Keenan McCall: What are some of the tracks you guys had the most fun designing for? What are some favorites you’re most excited for players to see?
Masanobu Suzui: Of course, every song to all of the staff members are fantastic songs. We’re all players of the series, and we have our own affinity to each of the different songs. Each stage is created with the love and passion that we all have for any Kingdom Hearts game.
There are so many members on the development team who are fans of the Kingdom Hearts series, and each person comes in saying ‘I want to do this song’. They have those really strong feelings toward not just the song selection, but how we’re placing the enemies within the stage, or the backgrounds that are being utilized, and say ‘We’ve got to include this particular memorable scene.’
Even the structure of how these stages are put together was a great deal of the discussions that were had amongst the team members. So we know that everybody’s passions have gone into the creation of the different stages.
I particularly like “Vector to the Heavens,” a very well-known fan-favorite by Yoko Shimomura. It’s a very poignant, melancholy almost, song, and when the enemies appear in time with the music — and you react in time with the enemies popping up on the screen — it brings even more excitement to the stage.
Ichiro Hazama: My favorite would be “Under the Sea.” It has a really nice rhythm, a nice tempo, and it has become a fan-favorite in Kingdom Hearts. It’s also very representative of some of the Disney songs we’re featuring within the game as well. And it’s such an iconic song.
Tetsuya Nomura: My favorite is “Simple and Clean.” Of course, you can’t describe Kingdom Hearts without that famous song by Hikaru Utada.
Keenan McCall: Could you tell me a little more about the gameplay? As you said, it’s going to have that same feel of a standard Kingdom Hearts game, but with a rhythm game framework. How are you guys executing that and bringing it to fruition?
Masanobu Suzui: With Kingdom Hearts, one of the unique characteristics is that stylish action and very exhilarating gameplay. Melody of Memory’s controls are very action-oriented, and this applies not just to Sora, but to all of the different characters you would have in your party and as your allies.
Trying to translate that into a Rhythm action so to speak was a bit of a challenge, so we thought about it from two different perspectives. The first of which is the motion or animation of Sora and the different characters. We looked at the action RPG side of how Sora is being animated and then how we required action to be incorporated in a Rhythm game. There are differences when we’re considering that.
So looking at how we’re animating our character, and controlling the length of how long it takes for a character to make a movement, was something we had to do a bit of trial and error with to make sure it made sense in a rhythm game.
For example, when you’re trying to hit a button, you want that reaction right away so that you’re hitting your enemy in tempo with the song. So we had to go through different experiments and we took an animation technique where we’re adjusting the key-frame, so that you have one key frame and then in the next one you have that responsive hit.