Tetsuya Nomura has opened up about Final Fantasy's relationship with Kingdom Hearts, saying the series isn't "exactly" a crossover between that and Disney.
When Kingdom Hearts first debuted, one of the key parts of its identity is that it contained both Disney characters and heroes and villains from Final Fantasy, generally being viewed as a crossover of sorts. That's died down in more recent games, however, with Kingdom Hearts 3 initially only having a Moogle shopkeeper and a few minor references to Final Fantasy, a far cry from earlier games which had boss battles with Sephiroth and Final Fantasy characters as party members.
In a recent interview with Game Informer regarding the future of the series, Tetsuya Nomura was asked whether we can expect to see more Final Fantasy characters in Kingdom Hearts 4 considering the negative reception to their absence in Kingdom Hearts 3. This caused Nomura to explain the relationship between the two series and explain why Final Fantasy was included as part of the series in the first place.
.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=740&dpr=1.5)
Nomura said, "I understand there weren't that many Final Fantasy characters in Kingdom Hearts III. One thing I want to clear up is that a lot of fans are saying that Kingdom Hearts is this collaboration between Disney characters and Final Fantasy characters. But I really feel like that's not the basic concept of Kingdom Hearts; that's not exactly what Kingdom Hearts is."
Nomura continued, "When we released the first title, we had only a few original Kingdom Hearts characters. When they were interacting with really well-known, beloved Disney characters, I felt nobody really knew these new characters, so it was harder for them to stand their ground just yet. And so, we had a lot of Final Fantasy characters involved to lend a hand for everyone to get to know these [original Kingdom Hearts] characters better.
As for Kingdom Hearts 4, Nomura said that the balance between the two series is currently being considered, but that he doesn't have anything to reveal right now. Looks like our chances of Lightning and Noctis just got a little slimmer though.