Hidden Treasure: The Kingdom Hearts Design Document
- Details
- Published on July 7, 2015 @ 04:14 am
- Written by Sign
Earlier today, we posted an article featuring a piece of art from the long-lost Kingdom Hearts 1 design document, something we thought would never see the light of day. Frankly speaking, none of this was meant to be released to the public under such informal circumstances, and yet it was, and within it lay a treasure.
Here, you'll find what few records remain of the KH1 design document, back when it still possessed the tentative title "Kingdom of Hearts". You'll find a few interesting images, such as screenshots from a very early build of the game when Sora had silver hair and orange pants, as well as concept artwork for a Toy Story world, various costume changes unused in the final product, a Station of Awakening artwork for Alice, and much more.
We have edited the never-before-seen artwork as best we could for presentation, which you can view below.
All text in the document can be read below:
Story Synopsis:
This is a story that happened in a world that exists only if you believe it exists.The sound of crashing waves.
This is Destiny Islands, an idyllic island paradise.
The story begins when three of the island's youngest inhabitants, Sora (the main character), his best friend Riku, and a young girl named Kairi, decide to leave their home to go see the outer world.It happens on the night before their departure, with their raft fully loaded and bprepared: a black tornado, along with a storm like they'd never seen before, suddenly hit the island.
The raging tornado, as if it had some malignant will, destroyed everything in its path, blowing away and scattering the three children to three different worlds.Meanwhile, the Disney Castle was in turmoil over King Mickey's disappearance.
The only hint left was a message addressed to the court magician, Donald Duck, and the captain of the royal cavalry, Goofy.
The message read:
"Look for the holder of Keyblade."Upon receiving Princess Minnie's order, Goofy and Donald departs to search for their king with the King's friend and loyal dog, Pluto, at their side.
Traverse Town- a crossing point of people, items, information and memories.
Donald and Goofy come to this place hoping to find any kind of information that would give them a clue to their king's whereabouts, but they accidentally run into Sora, the holder of the Keyblade.
Sora, Donald and Goofy become acquainted with a robed man who tells them of the dark creatures called the Heartless, who steal the hearts of people and worlds.
It seems the Heartless are behind all the bizarre occurrences plaguing the worlds, including the king's disappearance and the black tornado that destroyed Sora's island.
Upon learning of the link between the Heartless, the black tornado and the king's disappearance, Sora, Goofy and Donald decide to join forces and board the SS GummiBlock, a ship able to travelthe sea between dimensions.Our heroes travel to many different worlds in search of Kairi and King Mickey. Among the strange lands they travel to are the worlds of "Alice in Wonderland," "Tarzan," "Winnie-the-Pooh," "Aladdin," "The Little Mermaid," "Nightmare Before Christmas," "Hercules," "Pinocchio," "Peter Pan," but there they find that the Heartless, in alliance with the Disney villains, have begun invading each of those worlds in order to steal their hearts.
It is now up to Sora, the holder of the Keyblade, to lock the gates to people and worlds' hearts before the Heartless get to them.
During his adventure acrsos the many worlds, and through meeting the denizens of those worlds and sharing joyful, sometimes sorrowful experiences with them, Sora learns that people can share a link between themselves, through their hearts. As he comes to realize this and through these many experiences, Sora begins to grow as a person.Meanwhile, Riku was also in a strange world searching for Kairi.
His way of searching for Kairi was different thank Sora's, however; he chose to take whatever measures necessary to find her, no matter how evil that may be.
The darkness growing within him eventually makes Riku a perfect target for the Heartless to prey on, and it leads him to stand in Sora's way as his rival.As their travels take them through a great many adventures, the three realized that their ultimate goal has changed from simply finding Mickey and Kairi to defeating the Heartless and protecting their universe.
When Sora and his friends finally arrive at "The Hollow Keep (tentative)" they find the place taken over by the Heartless and the princesses from each world being held as captives.
Together with the Disney heroes, Sora succeeds in rescuing the princesses.
Sora now finds him face-to-face with the boss of the Heartless, trying to put an end to this drama...Will they be able to bring peace back to the world and will they be able to find the people they've been searching for?
Game Outline:
This is an all-new game title with an original storyline, developed and presented by the first-ever tie up effort by Disney and Square.Square's top creators have come together to produce a title that fully utilizes the high-spec Playstation2, under direction of Tetsuya Nomura, known for his character designs for Square's Final Fantasy series.
The aim of this game is to travel across a beautifully crafted 3D CG world through the eyes of Sora, Donald and Goofy, cooperating with each other in action-packed battles with their own special skills such as magic spells, to clear various adventures.
The exciting battle scenes with the Heartless and the Disney villains will ensure, thanks to a new game system that incorporates magic and command-attack system often used in RPGs. The flexibility of the system will allow all level of players to customize the game play, such as choosing automatic/manual battle mode to suit the player.[Note on the contents:
All the contents of this style guide are works in progress and are subject to change without notice.]Sora:
The hero of this story. Sora is a fourteen-year-old boy who has his own personal issues like every other teenager does, but he always keeps a positive attitude towards everything.
Simple-minded at times, but his sense of justice is very strong.
"Sora" means "sky" in Japanese, representing his adventurous spirit.
Kairi:
The heroine of this story. Also aged 14.
A few years ago Kairi moved into the island where Sora and Riku live.
She may appear gentle and fragile, but inside she has a strong will that does not bend to any force.
Her name, "Kairi", bears the meaning of "sea", home of all life forms.
Riku:
Sora's best friend. He may seem a lot more collected and cooler than his same-age best friend, yet he remains expressive of his own thoughts.
Always curious towards the unknown, he begins to question the small, closed world in which he lives.
His name, "Riku" means "land" in Japanese.
Donald:
The court wizard.
With the order left by the king who disappears in the beginning of the story, Donald goes for an adventure searching for the hero. His vibrant character and quack-talk is sure to complicate things, adding even more fun to the story.
Goofy:
Captain of the royal cavalry.
Goofy, though a captain of his own troops dislikes battles and carries only a shield with him.
Goofy becomes Donald's partner in this journey, complimenting wacky Donald with his slow-talking, easy-going style.
Minnie Mouse:
King Mickey's queen.
As the queen she takes charge of the castle after Mickey's disappearance, appoints Goofy and Donald to search for the king in her place.
Daisy Duck:
A noble lady.
A sweet maid who fancies Donald, she collects her courage(?) to send him off to his mission.
Chip:
The mechanical engineer working for King Mickey.
The underground airship hanger is his working place as well as playing grounds.
It is Chip who designs the SS GummiBlock, allowing our heroes to reach other worlds.
Dale:
A mechanic working with Chip.
He maintains and, if necessary, primps up the SS GummiBlock which Donald and Goofy boards for the trip.Heartless:
As their name implies, they are the creatures without their hearts.
They are said to have come to an unknown dimension to steal away people's hearts, but their true motives are yet to be brought to light.
The Heartless vary in their sizes and shapes, and it seems some can change their appearance as they wish.Map Design:
Game Map:
The maps (backgrounds) in this game can be roughly categorized into two groups.Dimensional Map:
In this game, the universe that many worlds exist is called the Dimensions.
Sora and his friends travel this 3D universe in a ship to reach the worlds, and each of the world is represented by an icon (see diagram).
If a world is selected to enter, the player lands on the chosen world's field map.Field Maps:
These maps are where the gameplay actually takes place.
The setting of each world is beautifully recreated in 3D CG.
On these maps the characters will engage in battles, mini-games, clearing traps and entering different scenes within the world.
Only a small portion of the actual artwork can be shown in this package - Pinocchio, Winnie-the-Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, The Little Mermaid and Peter Pan are among the other stages to be used in the game.
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Source: mcmahon_nathan
COMMENTS
This is legit the most interesting and awesome thing that I've seen on this site in so long that I dont know when. Is that a proto-Sora battling Chernabog I spy!?
We'd known about the document for ages now, but it seems like nobody ever really took the time to really see what was in it besides the Alice artwork. The thing is literally a treasure trove of lost concept art and ideas ;~;
Yes, Incognito! That is proto-Sora! Never have I wanted to see that design get used more than right now.
We'd known about the document for ages now, but it seems like nobody ever really took the time to really see what was in it besides the Alice artwork. The thing is literally a treasure trove of lost concept art and ideas ;~;
This saddens me master of spocks. It saddens me greatly.
Yes, Incognito! That is proto-Sora! Never have I wanted to see that design get used more than right now.
It makes you kinda sad they went with a human design doesn't it?
Lion Sora and Riku would have been so badass the more I think about it. A whole island full of lion/human mutants. That would have been awesome
So if Alice originally had a station, i guess that meant she was captured by Maleficent before Sora left the islands in the first draft?
This saddens me master of spocks. It saddens me greatly.
At least now we've finally decided to give it a good look! If only we could get our hands on an actual copy to get better versions of the art, but the story goes that Disney threw most of them out and what is out there is really all that is left.
| It makes you kinda sad they went with a human design doesn't it? |
Yeah, but the human design isn't bad at all. Lion Sora had a lot of personality in the design, though.
Lion Sora and Riku would have been so badass the more I think about it. A whole island full of lion/human mutants. That would have been awesome
Oh gosh, it would have been amazing. Or just different animals in general!
| So if Alice originally had a station, i guess that meant she was captured by Maleficent before Sora left the islands in the first draft? |
Either that or the stations meant something different at the time they had been planned...
sadness fills my frail body when I realize that KH will never have this level of charm put into it again
Holy mother of Christ. This is just...
[video=youtube;t6MFR-gDIpY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6MFR-gDIpY[/video]
We should've gotten this as the KH 1.5 pre-order bonus instead of that lackluster artbook. I guessing copies of this document aren't available for purchase?
Honestly, I always have the opposite take-away from others in these threads, it seems. For me, proto-KH discussion is always rigged with signs of things that could have gone wrong (furry Sora with a chainsaw is silly, sorry) and this is why great minds like Nomura really need editorial supervision. It's a shame they didn't use Alice's SoA, though; I never knew that was a thing. And yeah a lot of this artwork is just mind-bogglingly gorgeous...can I ask the philosophers in the room what happens when a game based around childhood nostalgia becomes, in and of itself, a source of immense nostalgia? All that pseudo-Gothic and Classic Disney blended imagery like the PoH wrapped in thorns is just so KH1.
Speaking of which, man, it's gotta be such a thorn in the side of every Pixar fan here that Toy Story has been planned since KH1, included in KH2's coding, yet still never made it into the games. I feel for y'all.
Holy mother of Christ. This is just...
[video=youtube;t6MFR-gDIpY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6MFR-gDIpY[/video]
We should've gotten this as the KH 1.5 pre-order bonus instead of that lackluster artbook. I guessing copies of this document aren't available for purchase?
Well, we got that one piece of art with Sora, Donald, and Goofy on each other's shoulders...and I think the grinning one. That's about it. It really should have been, though. I'll never be so disappointed in an art book promoted as having "never-before-seen art", showing off never-before-seen art in the trailer (that Riku blindfolded art depresses me forever), then not having said never-before-seen art (like I said, that Riku blindfolded art depresses me forever because it was never shown except in that trailer).
The document was binned by Disney so only a few people have their hands on one. A few have gone on sale every now and then, like the one we sourced was eventually sold on ebay I believe.
Zettaflare
July 7, 2015 @ 04:13 amOffline