How did the concept behind Kingdom Hearts, one of Square Enix"s most successful new concepts in recent years, come about? "I don"t remember the details, but I was talking with [current Square Enix corporate executive] Shinji Hashimoto and Hironobu Sakaguchi," producer Tetsuya Nomura told Famitsu magazine in an interview. "The topic came up that it"d be nice if we could make a game with Disney. I had been wanting to make an original action RPG by that time, and I had had the basic game system for KH in my mind for a while by that point. I thought it"d be a good opportunity for me, so I raised my hand and told them to let me handle it."

The three sides didn"t see eye-to-eye on everything, of course. "Square wanted to make a game starring Mickey Mouse, and Disney wanted a Donald Duck title. Meanwhile, I wanted neither," Nomura said with a laugh. "So I built a project plan for KH and began negotiating with both sides. That plan was largely what you see now; a game featuring lots of characters without focusing on any particular one."

People often have the impression that Nomura, given his artistic background, designs games based off story and characters ahead of gameplay. "That"s not really the case," he notes. "I thought of the Keyblade in KH from the beginning, and that made "keys" an integral keyword in the story."