11 FUN FACTS ABOUT ‘KINGDOM HEARTS’

“In this place, to find is to lose and to lose is to find. That is the way in Castle Oblivion” – Marluxia, Re: Chain of Memories

1. Kingdom Hearts II was censored in the US. Apparently, the blood in the original Japanese release was deemed to be ‘too much’ for American audiences to handle
2. Kingdom Hearts II  was the last project Pat Morita worked on before he passed away in 2005 at age 73. He voiced the Emperor (from Mulan) in the Kingdom Hearts franchise
3. The idea for Kingdom Hearts was conceived in an elevator when Disney and Square Enix worked in the same building at one stage. Shinji Hashimoto (the producer for Kingdom Hearts) had the idea of a Disney/Square Enix crossover after talking to a Disney executive in an elevator they were in together
4. Squaresoft held a ‘name in the game’ contest – where a fan could get their name in the game. The winner was Kurt Zisa, which is an optional boss in Kingdom Hearts found in Agrabah
5. Kingdom Hearts is the last Squaresoft game. It was the last game released with the old logo before the company became SquareEnix in 2005
6. Despite the fact that some of the Disney Princes use swords as a weapon, Disney did not want Sora to wield one. Hence the Keyblade was born
7. (Well this isn’t really a ‘fun’ fact but I thought I should still put it in) Master Xehanort was voiced by Chikao Ohtsuka for the Japanese version and was voiced by Leonard Nimoy for the English version. Unfortunately, both passed away within a month of each other during January 2015 and February 2015
8. Initially, Kingdom Hearts was going to be a game that focused on gameplay with only a simple story line (to appeal to Disney’s target audience). However, it was determined that the series would be a failure without a more in-depth storyline, so the story was developed further
9. The Shadows are programmed to move as randomly as possibly
10. Ariel was going to be a Princess of the Heart. However, for her to be captured by Malificent and fit into the storyline – she would have already have had to gotten her legs from Ursula. So, Alice was chosen instead
11. Halloween Town and Atlantica are the only two worlds were Sora, Donald and Goofy change outfits. This is because in Atlantica they obviously need to change forms to be able to survive underwater, while in Halloween Town if they did not change their appearance then they would not be able to pass as villagers