Kingdom Hearts feels like Nomura's version of a traditional Final Fantasy

Nomura is the creator of FF7, and FF8 and FF10 by the time Kingdom Hearts was made however those FF titles diverged from the classic mediaval/steampunk formula of Final Fantasy games.

However, with Kingom Hearts, i feel like he created his own version of a class Final Fantasy. Technologically, most of the game has mediaval-victorian technology but near the end it becomes a bit more steampunk. The gummi ship is also another steampunk element.

You have worlds like Traverse Town and Wonderland which are pretty fantasy styled. TT seems to draw inspiration from Alexandria from FF9 which isnt a bad thing.

Then near the end, you reach Hollow Bastion which is a very classic FF castle. Its overall design is mediaval but also has lots of steampunk features like pipes, gears etc. It reminds me of Lindblum Castle in the exterior while the interior resembles desert palace.

Outside of the settings - which is pretty much standard JRPG fare really - I really do not agree with this. For starters, Final Fantasy didn't move on to real-time combat until FFXIV, and it wasn't until FFXV that it directly paralleled Kingdom Hearts' combat style...if we ignore spinoffs, although offhand I can't think of any spinoffs that really mirror KH unless you *really* want to stretch it and look at Dissidia. Narrative-wise Kingdom Hearts could not be further from Final Fantasy either, as it spans multiple titles (where FF has always been relatively self-contained, even in the instances where the games have had sequels that continue the narrative) and is significantly more...convoluted, shall we say. It draws from the same tropes, but the presentation could not be more different within the confines of the genre if it tried.

Another point to note is that in the earlier Kingdom Hearts titles the settings being reminiscent of Final Fantasy locations was likely intentional, as the series was originally more of a crossover between Final Fantasy and Disney before mostly phasing out the former and focusing more upon the worlds of the latter. It's definitely evolved over time to become more its own thing than the sum of its parts, but honestly I don't think it has ever felt like a take on traditional Final Fantasy despite Nomura being at the helm or the cameos. At least, no more so than any other JRPG I've played with a more medieval setting.

Dawn said:

Outside of the settings - which is pretty much standard JRPG fare really - I really do not agree with this. For starters, Final Fantasy didn't move on to real-time combat until FFXIV, and it wasn't until FFXV that it directly paralleled Kingdom Hearts' combat style...if we ignore spinoffs, although offhand I can't think of any spinoffs that really mirror KH unless you *really* want to stretch it and look at Dissidia. Narrative-wise Kingdom Hearts could not be further from Final Fantasy either, as it spans multiple titles (where FF has always been relatively self-contained, even in the instances where the games have had sequels that continue the narrative) and is significantly more...convoluted, shall we say. It draws from the same tropes, but the presentation could not be more different within the confines of the genre if it tried.

Another point to note is that in the earlier Kingdom Hearts titles the settings being reminiscent of Final Fantasy locations was likely intentional, as the series was originally more of a crossover between Final Fantasy and Disney before mostly phasing out the former and focusing more upon the worlds of the latter. It's definitely evolved over time to become more its own thing than the sum of its parts, but honestly I don't think it has ever felt like a take on traditional Final Fantasy despite Nomura being at the helm or the cameos. At least, no more so than any other JRPG I've played with a more medieval setting.

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in terms of gameplay its different indeed i was refering more to the setting. They also brought back informal classes Donald being the mage and Goofy being the tank while Sora is a warrior.

Also, there are lots of carryovers from Final Fantasy games. The spells, the grading of the spells, a lot of armor also references final fantasy (infrit's horn, gaia belt, ribbon) and even abilities such as haste. Also, heling items such as potions, tents, elixirs. The only missing on is phonex down lmao.

And this isnt a bad thing tbh ngl. I really like all these carryovers. I dont think Nomura intentionally made the Kingom Heart's setting the way it was, it just ended up resembling ff titles, 9 in particular.

Also, i dont really see how brning up other jrpgs has anythning to do with it. Because most of the elements i mentioned are exclusive to final fantay titles and Nomura is part of square not another company.

yamibakura95 said:

in terms of gameplay its different indeed i was refering more to the setting. They also brought back informal classes Donald being the mage and Goofy being the tank while Sora is a warrior.

Also, there are lots of carryovers from Final Fantasy games. The spells, the grading of the spells, a lot of armor also references final fantasy (infrit's horn, gaia belt, ribbon) and even abilities such as haste. Also, heling items such as potions, tents, elixirs. The only missing on is phonex down lmao.

And this isnt a bad thing tbh ngl. I really like all these carryovers. I dont think Nomura intentionally made the Kingom Heart's setting the way it was, it just ended up resembling ff titles, 9 in particular.

Also, i dont really see how brning up other jrpgs has anythning to do with it. Because most of the elements i mentioned are exclusive to final fantay titles and Nomura is part of square not another company.

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It's relevant because you're describing genre staples? By no means are informal classes unique to Final Fantasy - so many JRPGs have party members who specialise in something and fit a specific role, and they're not all made by Square Enix. Bandai Namco's Tales series always fits its characters into given roles. By no means are the locations unique to Final Fantasy, or even JRPGs in general: castles and the like are fantasy tropes that are older than video games. If you think these things are exclusive to Final Fantasy titles, you really need to play more JRPGs.

As I said, Kingdom Hearts started life as a crossover between Final Fantasy and Disney. So of course Final Fantasy naming conventions are going to apply, for that sense of familiarity. Why invent new terminology when you don't have to? This isn't even a thing unique to Kingdom Hearts, plenty of Square Enix JRPGs will use the names of spells and abilities and other terminology because to call it anything else would be ridiculous: it is what it is. But that really is as far as it goes. It's hardly grounds to say that Kingdom Hearts is a direct parallel to a traditional Final Fantasy title as far as I'm concerned.

Dawn said:

It's relevant because you're describing genre staples? By no means are informal classes unique to Final Fantasy - so many JRPGs have party members who specialise in something and fit a specific role, and they're not all made by Square Enix. Bandai Namco's Tales series always fits its characters into given roles. By no means are the locations unique to Final Fantasy, or even JRPGs in general: castles and the like are fantasy tropes that are older than video games. If you think these things are exclusive to Final Fantasy titles, you really need to play more JRPGs.

As I said, Kingdom Hearts started life as a crossover between Final Fantasy and Disney. So of course Final Fantasy naming conventions are going to apply, for that sense of familiarity. Why invent new terminology when you don't have to? This isn't even a thing unique to Kingdom Hearts, plenty of Square Enix JRPGs will use the names of spells and abilities and other terminology because to call it anything else would be ridiculous: it is what it is. But that really is as far as it goes. It's hardly grounds to say that Kingdom Hearts is a direct parallel to a traditional Final Fantasy title as far as I'm concerned.

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they are staples but Nomura is part of square and had previously worked on FF titles so he was more likely to draw inspiration from there than anything else. He wasnt just some random desginer who got hired by square just to make kingom hearts. im pretty sur even he would admit that he got ideas from final fantasy, its not like its a bad thing or anything.

I also didnt say that keeping terminology was a bad thing. I dont understand why you are phrasing it like i said it was. And like i said, it was unintenional, it just happens to share traits with older ff titles AND it was made by the same company by a person who had desgined three not so traditional ff games.

For what it's worth, outside of FF7 where he was also involved with the scenario, Nomura isn't the "creator" of any of the early FFs you listed. He was in charge of character designs and some visuals.

As for the setting, I dunno. I think with KH, they were trying to lean more into the whimsy than the whole "gritty, realistic side effects of war and capitalism" that Final Fantasy had already become, but not because Nomura prefers it (if anything, he brings the Edge™), probably moreso because when the games were still heavily Disney and not yet established as their own series with tons of original locales, they needed the characters and villains to more or less blend in with the worlds and settings they brought in from Disney worlds. I think it's pretty telling that as Nomura has been given free reign over the series, the series has become much closer to the look and feel of the Final Fantasies you listed in the op. It's to the point where one of the upcoming games we're expecting is probably literally going to be the "Final Fantasy but it's the real world" vision of FFXV (or Versus XIII, if you prefer) that Nomura had in his head.

The magic of KH is that the world is malleable enough that you can have any setting from any Disney world and it doesn't actually feel out of place. You can have Donald and Goofy running through the worlds of Little Mermaid, Aladdin, TRON, Big Hero Six, and Monster's Inc, and you barely even notice that it's weird. And it is weird. It's super weird! It's incredible this series not only exists but is wildly successful. I have a lot of problems with Nomura's writing and lore and handling of the series over the years, but one thing he has excelled at is running a series that brings together so many wildly different canons and making heartwarming games out of them. And I think that's the basis of KH, moreso than Nomura's particular take on the JRPG/FF genre as a whole.

Something tangentially related at best, but I feel like it belongs here. I think it's worth noting that a lot of FF's elements are derived from other sources as well. Like half of Final Fantasy's content is basically ripped right out of D&D, which in turn is predominately ripped from Tolkien's work. Then another huge chunk is stuff lifted directly from various mythologies and mashed together - Leviathan, Behemoths, Zu's being suspiciously like Ziz, Ifrit, Shiva, Sylphs, Fairies, the Feymarch in FFIV etc etc etc. There's only a handful of recurring elements particularly unique to Final Fantasy: Chocobos, Moogles, Tonberies, Marlboros, Cactuars... crystals I guess? I don't know much about Kingdom Hearts, I don't even like it, but as far as I know those are the parts of Final Fantasy with the least representation in Kingdom Hearts (do correct me if I'm wrong).

All those elements you talk about are just standard SquareEnix affair. They even appear in titles that Nomura had little or nothing to do with. I'm sure that it's not coincidence he used some of that stuff in Kingdom Hearts, but I think it's more to do with them being studio and genre staples than it does with their inclusion being a love letter to a handful of Final Fantasy titles.

I find myself in the same camp as Cherrim. I think the biggest thematic commonality between Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy is that both of them take stuff from a bunch of random mythoses that have nothing to do with each other, cram them together and turn them into something that is somehow coherent. It's like watching someone take a handful of pieces from a bunch of unrelated jigsaw puzzles, forcibly ram them together and somehow still make a picture, albeit one radically different than the sum of its parts.

I don't even like Kingdom Hearts, but I still think that's pretty cool. I think that's also where a lot of your feelings here are coming from. It's 100% valid that you see commonalities between the titles, but I don't think the intent behind it is exactly what you think it was either.