Kingdom Hearts fans rejoice as Tetsuya Nomura hints that a return to home console games could be in the works

Alice Hill

12 years ago

2012 is a big year for all us Kingdom Hearts fans, given
that it was 10 years ago this year that this hugely popular Disney-inspired game
first came on the scene (with the Japanese version for PlayStation 2 dropping
on March 28, 2002 while the North American version
debuted on September 17th of
that same year).

But for those of us who love the Playstation version of
Kingdom Hearts, our hearts have been aching for a number of years now. Given
that the last Kingdom Hearts game which came out on a console system was for
the Playstation 2 in 2008. And even then it was a remake of a portable console
game, the Game Boy Advance
which came out in 2003. More to the point,
the last original 'non-spinoff' Kingdom Hearts game that came out before that
was back in 2005. Between then and now, Square Enix (the company that makes
Kingdom Hearts) has released a DS game, a PSP game, a 3DS game, and a mobile
game in Japan.

Each game that has come out since wasn't so much a way to
continue the main story, but moreover a way to explain loose ends. With 'Final
Mix' versions of the games with extra scenes and information being released.
Kingdom Hearts games usually center around the main character, Sora,
interacting with the Disney characters on different 'Worlds' to solve their
problems, but slowly the story has become more and more about original
characters & Square Enix characters and less about Disney. To the point
where a game like Epic Mickey
was considered to a breath of fresh air to Disney
fans who just wanted to see Disney characters in a Disney game (Though — that
said — the folks at Square Enix do make
a point of recruiting the actors who originally voiced these Disney characters
to come back and voice these characters yet again for the Kingdom Hearts
games).

And these tying-up-loose-ends Kingdom Hearts games, while
they are all very good, have gradually produced a backlash within the fan
community. At first when 358/2 Days
(A game that centered around a pseudo clone
of Sora and the Organization he worked for), Birth by Sleep
(A game that
centered around three characters which had Keyblades, the magical weapon Sora
has), and KH Mobile (A game where you can dress up a human avatar like Kingdom
Hearts characters) were announced, the fans were extremely happy. But it's been
seven years now since the last major Kingdom Hearts game was released and fans
can't help but ask 'When will the spin-offs stop'? The arguments over whether
or not these games are truly spin-offs have become so intense that many members
of the community have adopted the phrase 'Don't Call It a Spin-off'.

So when Tetsuya Nomura, the creator of Kingdom Hearts,
hinted in Nintendo Power that future KH games may return to consoles, the fans
had reason to rejoice. '"I also feel that it's about time that Kingdom Hearts
should go back to being on a console," Tetsuya said after being asked about
doing a game on the PSP Vita.

That said, this doesn't necessarily guarantee a Kingdom
Hearts console game from Nomura anytime soon. If anything, rumors suggest that
a Birth By Sleep 2 is in the works. But whatever Nomura does next, Kingdom
Hearts fans are sure to fight over it.

But — for now — let's just celebrate Kingdom
Hearts' 10th anniversary by checking out Dream Drop Distance, the Nintendo 3DS
game which hits store shelves on July 12th. And then hope that — in our
Kingdom-Heart-of-Hearts — that console game which Tetsuya Nomura recently
hinted at actually gets released before Kingdom Hearts' 11th or 12th
anniversary rolls around.