First, and most importantly, the engine powering Kingdom Hearts II has been rebuilt from the ground up; so graphically, the sequel should be noticeably more detailed than its predecessor. When asked what the biggest criticism about Kingdom Hearts had been, and whether or not the development team was working to fix it, Nomura was quick to respond. "Yes, the camera was the biggest complaint." He assured everybody in the room that Square Enix has developed a much more user-friendly camera control system for Kingdom Hearts II that is far superior to what gamers struggled with in the first title in the series. This is no doubt music to the ears of a great number of Kingdom Hearts fans that found themselves surrounded by packs of Heartless at some point in the game; hopefully jamming on the attack button and swinging the camera wildly will not be the most effective tactic this time around.
Nomura touched upon the full-motion video functionality of the GBA title, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. Square Enix is in partnership with middleware provider AM3 Technology and as such has been able to put extremely high-quality video sequences into the Game Boy Advance game. Nomura claims that it was a bit difficult to fit as much video onto the 256 meg cartridge as they had originally wanted, but what's there should be impressive to fans of the series. When asked if they would be supporting any other GBA technologies, specifically the wireless adapter, Nomura stated that nothing had been planned. And with the game hitting store shelves in Japan next month, I'd say that any sort of multiplayer functionality or card trading will not be present in the title.
Most of the press in attendance seemed keen to know more about the developer's relationship with Disney and how it affects the final product. When asked what kind of problems stem from working with the animation giant, Nomura was able to cite a few restrictions that were unavoidable in their relationship with Disney. For example, because the game is developed with so many strictly defined worlds and characters, it can often be difficult to combine those influences fluidly while remaining true to each. But because the Disney worlds -- and similarly the different Final Fantasy universes -- contain human and non-human characters with a number of different magical and fantastical elements, they do tend to blend together in a convincing fashion without much need for reinterpretation.
