Tai Yasue Interview with MeriStation: Talks KH HD 2.5 Remix, KH3, and KHX

Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX

MeriStation, a popular Spanish website, had an opportunity to sit down with Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix’s co-director Tai Yasue following Gamescom 2014. In the interview Yasue discusses Spanish dubs with Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5, localization with Kingdom Hearts X[chi] and his own personal choices for worlds in Kingdom Hearts III.

Thanks to Daniel Black of KH13.com, the interview has been translated:

Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD ReMix is almost like cooked candy. With the game completely finished, we talked with it´s Producer Tai Yasue, on the Gamescom event in Colony, Germany for the purpose of discovering all the secrets of this remaster and, also, trying to get some open possibilities for Kingdom Hearts III, the third numbered title of the franchise and also the most expected by fans. The work done for this remasteris too far from being a three-game simple pack.

To begin with, Yasue explained to us how, for example, Birth by Sleep received a graphic update with a texture redesign, adapted for a better resolution. In the case of Kingdom Hearts II, do you remember the game had 4:3 resolution, now in HD ReMix it will be 16:9. This has motivated the team itself to recreate data for all this extra screen, in the same with Kingdom Hearts Re:coded, now showed up in a theater mode instead of a playable game, with three hours of cinematics adapted to the high definition and new voice cast.

Far off from general stuff, we wanted to get advantage of having him face to face to resolve some doubts the community had for some time. The first, and bad one is that KHII will not have spanish voices. The reason it´s because, like Yasue said, in Spain and Europe in general, they will receive for the first time the Final Mix versions of the game, and the only solution was to use the spanish dub, and the new scenes in english, and that didn´t worked too well. The good news, the game will have spanish subs, as after seeing what happened with Dream Drop Distance, we can be thankful.

The second reason, and also the main reason of an online petition, is why these remaster versions will not see the light on Xbox 360, having see that KHIII will appear on Xbox One. According to Yasue, when they began to work in 1.5 HD, they studied the game code, and they realized that, as the original games were released on PS2, it was more easy and cheaper to adapt them to PS3, a console which “Extracts the maximum potential of these titles”. However they are not closed to realease these versions in other platforms, but he confirmed that we can forget about getting digital releases of 1.5 and 2.5 in Xbox One and PS4, by the time being, these will remain in physical format.

Dream Drop distance is the only game of the franchise that wasn´t considered for a remaster, but this could change. Asking Yasue about the reason of this exclusion, he said the title was too recent and, in time, they will consider what to do with it, and it´s considered in the end. About KH X (chi), he explained there´s no plan for an international release, but somehow the story is relevant for the franchise, and now it needs to be recovered and making it canon. He also said there´s no plan for a Nintendo game release, as they are working with KHIII for One/PS4 already.

Talking about the future of the Dark Seeker saga, we talked about how Frozen has become a worldwide success, including Japan, where´s like a hit. Asking how to include this universe in the next games, he explained that he likes everything related with the creation of ice elements the protagonist´s dualities, and the music, saying that he would like to do it like the snowed mountain in Land of Dragons from KHII, maybe including musical elements like Atlantica. What other things he would add? If the choice were his, he would use Star Wars and Marvel elements, but also worlds based on disney shorts like Timeless River, or Pixar movies, or even characters of Square games. Final Fantasy VII´s unused characters are his first options.

Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD ReMix will reach Europe December 5th 2014 for PlayStation 3, with remastered music, updated graphics, new contents from the Final Mix versions and other adjustments to make these titles the ultimate versions. If they manage to achieve it or not, we will see it soon, but now the grain of salt in this news is to know the lost of the magnificent Spanish dub included in KHII. Even we asked, as if we had nothing to lose: “And don´t you think of releasing this dubbing in DLC format?” after some thinking he responded: “Everything´s possible, but now we haven´t decided about it.”

Source: KH13, MeriStation