When making Kingdom Hearts, the "one thing" RPG icon Tetsuya Nomura "wasn't willing to budge on" was a non-Disney protagonist

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"I wanted Sora's design to be a kind of 'grand compilation' of all the characters I'd drawn up till then."

Kingdom Hearts PS2 screenshot
(Image credit: Square Enix)

Final Fantasy veteran and Kingdom Hearts creator Tetsuya Nomura was dead set on having a non-Disney character lead his multiversal Disney series.

When first drawing up character designs and initial treatments for the very first Kingdom Hearts game, Nomura knew he wanted to create an original star, which eventually led to him sketching Sora for the first time, a cheery protagonist that mixes classic Disney colours with a little JRPG edge.

"We talked about using an existing Disney character as the protagonist, but from the beginning I knew I wanted the main character to be non-Disney, with an all-star cast of supporting Disney characters," Nomura said in a recently resurfaced interview with Metal Gear Solid artist Yoji Shinkawa, first published in a Hyper PlayStation 2 Magazine, now available on Shmuplations. "That was one thing I wasn't willing to budge on."

"For Sora's coloring, I was very conscious of Mickey Mouse," he continued. "Since all the other characters are not Square characters but Disney, I wanted Sora's design to be a kind of 'grand compilation' of all the characters I'd drawn up till then. So I think he resembles a lot of characters: there's a bit of Cloud, a bit of Tidus, some Sion too. I was very intent on that."

Part of the reason for a more mature, zip-ridden protagonist was because Kingdom Hearts wasn't exactly what you'd expect from a 2002 licensed Disney. It was an RPG that carried Final Fantasy's traditions in many ways - with summons and similarly named spells - but with an action slant, anime melodrama, and a weirder, slightly ominous undertone.

"My concept for Kingdom Hearts was that it would be a game with a lot of depth, something you could play for a long time," Nomura explained. "I wanted to try making a game where the player could do anything. Even though Kingdom Hearts is a Disney game, there are quite a few "hardcore" elements that remain. Things where you'd think, we probably have to make this more friendly―we dared to buck that expectation in a number of places. For example, the map is 3D, but we deliberately did not include an easy-to-understand 2D-overhead minimap display... Originally, getting lost and having to use your head was part of the fun, I think. I do wonder if all the recent hand-holding and over-explanation from developers is really a good thing…" A vision of the future perhaps.

Before Kingdom Hearts 4 gets going, Sora's main actor said maybe "the best thing to do" is to let the series end: "Even if you have something you love."

Kaan Serin
Freelance contributor

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.