What Could Have Been / Kingdom Hearts

Sora could have looked like this.

Kingdom Hearts

• The game was originally supposed to star Mickey, but due to an example of Screwed by the Lawyers by Capcom and their license to both Disney's Magical Mirror Starring Mickey Mouse and the GBA port of Disney's Magical Quest, Square had to work around this with the creation of Sora.
• Kingdom Champion◊ (which could be shortened to Kinchan) was a working title early during development. The title was later changed to 'Kingdom Hearts' in order to fit the theme of hearts. Even then, the game was originally going to be called 'Kingdom Heart' earlier in development before a plural was added.
• Sora was originally conceived as a half-lion person, and his weapon was more of a chainsaw blade than a Keyblade. Have a picture◊. According to the game's Ultimania, the design was scrapped due to looking a bit to similar to Zidane Tribal.
• In early stages, Ansem the Seeker of Darkness was going to be a mysterious old man living on Destiny Islands. His design was golden hair and pale skin, a character design that was likely recycled for Ansem the Wise◊.
• Destiny Islands was originally going to be bigger and more expansive, possessing several slides◊ that people appeared to use to traverse around.
• Pete was originally planned to be a villain◊, the developers decided against it because there were already too many villains in the game.
• Chernabog was to have been the original Big Bad, the embodiment of all darkness, with the final battle having him burst out of the Final Keyhole in Hollow Bastion to fight Sora, Goofy, and Donald. This was changed to him being the surprise second to last boss once Ansem was added into the story.
• There would be a final battle between Sora and Riku on Crumbling Island, a remnant of Destiny Islands in the End of the World. This area still exists in the game files.
• An odd example is a scene from the beta trailer of the game, which has Riku at the top of Big Ben. What's odd is that, despite never appearing in the finished game, it is still referenced in later games as canon. It also shows Sora exploring Disney Castle, which only appears in the opening and closing cutscenes and couldn't be explored until II.
• Olympus Coliseum was intended to have more characters◊ besides the three (Hercules, Phil, and Hades) that appear in the final game.
• The developers once planned to change Sora's appearance in 100 Acre Woods.
• The Pride Lands were originally going to be featured as a world, but the game engine couldn't handle any dedicated quadruped movement, so Simba was included as a summon instead. After changing the game engine, the world managed to make it into Kingdom Hearts II.
• A The Jungle Book was originally considered for the game, but was scrapped in favor of Deep Jungle◊.
• An unknown western-themed world◊ was going to appear in the game.
• Rikku was originally supposed to have been part of Leon's crew in Traverse Town, but the production team decided that her name was too similar to Riku's. She was switched out for Yuffie, who received the costume that was planned for Rikku◊.
• Selphie was originally planned to wear a different outfit◊ different from her Final Fantasy VIII outfit.
• A younger version of Irvine Kinneas was also supposed to be in Destiny Islands, but was replaced with Wakka (also more recognizable, although perhaps because of Kingdom Hearts).
• The original press kit shows that Large Bodies could originally be fought in the First District of Traverse Town.
• The Assault Rider Heartless from Kingdom Hearts II was originally going to appear in this game but didn't fit in with any of the worlds aesthetically.
• There were plans to include Gargoyles early on, but it didn't pan out.
• The original plan for Hollow Bastion originally had Sora saving the Princesses of Heart by teaming up with their respective princes (and the Mad Hatter), rather than just the Beast.
• Early screenshots for the game show Donald and Goofy wearing their outfits from the classic Disney shorts, which ultimately were changed to the outfits they have throughout the series at Disney's request.
• Sora's sacrifice in Hollow Bastion was originally going to be followed with a sequence of him in what would later become known as The Final World, with Kairi having an expanded role and would have potentially been playable, but this was replaced with Sora becoming a Heartless instead, with The Final World not appearing until Kingdom Hearts III.
• Bahamut was going to be featured as a summon, but was Dummied Out. While it's still possible to access Bahamut in the summon menu via hacking, trying to summon it will crash the game.
• The game's plot was originally going to be much simpler and would have ended with Maleficent's defeat. However, Nomura was told that the game wouldn't sell without a more complex story, leading to the creation of a deeper story and eventually of Ansem.
• Concept art for the game features Sora wearing a loincloth in the Deep Jungle world.
• Concept art for the game features a world icon for what appears to be a Toy Story world that ultimately never panned out.
• Aerith was originally going to have her name spelled as "Aeris", as it's spelled in her parent game, but was changed to Aerith late in development.
• Aerith role in the game was originally going to be filled by Aya Brea, until requests by the staff who worked on Final Fantasy VII led to Aerith replacing her.
• Tifa was originally going to appear in the game as an Optional Boss, but ended up being cut for time. Ultimately, she would end up making an appearance in Kingdom Hearts II.
• The game was originally planned to have 20 worlds◊ as opposed to 13.
• The game was originally going to be Bookended with Sora repeating his "I've been having these weird thoughts lately" line, with another unidentified individual saying it alongside him. Ultimately, this idea would come to fruition via the secret ending for Kingdom Hearts III: Re Mind.

Chain of Memories

• Kingdom Hearts: Lost Memories was planned to be the original name.
• Deep Jungle was set to return for this game, but was cut due to copyright complications. Tarzan has not appeared in any game since.
• Marluxia was originally envisioned as a woman, but was changed to a man when the developers realized that having two women rebelling against an otherwise all-male Organization and getting killed for it wasn't the best look.
• The Dive to the Heart was planned at some point, presumably serving as a tutorial for the game rather than the encounter with Marluxia in Traverse Town that the finished game had instead.
• End of the World was planned as a world for the game at some point.
• According to a blog post by Derek Stephen Prince, Christopher Lee was to reprise his role as DiZ in Re:Chain of Memories after having voiced him in Kingdom Hearts II, but this ultimately never came into fruition and DiZ was instead voiced by Corey Burton. Lee would go on to have his sole reprisal of DiZ in 358/2 Days instead.

Kingdom Hearts II

• The final battle with Xemnas was supposed be quite different, with Xemnas melding into a giant Transformer-esque creature◊ after absorbing power from Kingdom Hearts and, upon defeat, transform into this◊ distorted version. This idea was nixed and replaced with the dragon-fortress/armored Xemnas battles instead.
• Trailers showed variants of Behemoths and Wyverns from the first game in the 1000 Heartless Battle.
• Sora was intended to have a double-bladed Keyblade◊. How this would affect gameplay is unclear.
• The outside walls of Hollow Bastion/Radiant Garden were originally going to be playable areas.
• Buzz and Woody were designed as a summon, but were Dummied Out. They were brought back as guest party members in Kingdom Hearts III.
• Axel was supposed to be killed by Roxas at the end of the game's prologue, but was such a fan-favorite and creator-favorite character that he was brought back for the rest of the game and given a Heroic Sacrifice.
• The members of Organization XIII from both this game and Chain of Memories were going to be bosses in the Olympus Coliseum, but were cut. The Data-Battles of Final Mix are a remnant of this.
• A data mine revealed that worlds based on Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., and Fantasia were at some point planned. Of course, all of these films would go on to appear in later games. Also, Atlantica was going to be a full world.
• The game originally was intended to be the second game in the series, hence its title, but ended up as the series' third game after it was decided to create Chain of Memories to bridge the gap between the two games.
• David Warner was to reprise his role as the MCP and Sark, but was unable to due to pre-existing commitments, resulting in Corey Burton taking the role instead.
• A Dummied Out version of the Final Fantasy IX world map theme exists in the game's coding, implying that it would have been used during the fight with Vivi, or that Vivi (or other characters from Final Fantasy IX) would have played a bigger role.
• The E3 2005 trailer shows that the game was originally going to feature a camera angle more in line with the first game, being more zoomed in on Sora.
• Setzer's cameo was originally going to be filled by Rufus Shinra, until Nomura realized that Final Fantasy representation in the series was already heavily skewed towards Final Fantasy VII so Rufus was changed to Setzer due to the latter being from Final Fantasy VI. This humorously backfired among many fans who found Setzer to be out-of-character (since he was acting more like Rufus), to the point where Dissidia Final Fantasy makes a joke about it.
• Roxas was intended to be a boss battle in the game, as opposed to simply being a cutscene◊, but was changed due to time constraints. The idea was refitted for Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix.
• Tifa originally wasn't to appear in the game, but ended up written in after the developers realized how well she fits into Cloud's narrative.
• Two untextured versions of the Ultima Weapon from the first game can be found within the games code, known as "Edge of Ultima" and "Detection Saber", implying they were meant to appear in the game at one point.

358/2 Days

• The developers once planned for Roxas to have a subordinate Nobody accompany him in battles◊, however the idea was scrapped because it was too difficult to implement.
• Originally, Xion was meant to take learning that she was a replica much worse, insisting that she is real and fighting Roxas◊. However, the staff convinced Nomura to have her remain a nice girl.
• A Pinocchio world was originally going to be featured, and the game file has some Dummied Out assets. It would have included Gepetto, Foulfellow and Gideon, and human Pinocchio, and would have had a What Measure Is a Non-Human?-centered plot and a focus on circus scenes. It was cut due to space limitations. The world was eventually reworked and included in Dream Drop Distance in the form of Prankster's Paradise.
• Both Hades and Megara were set to appear in this game, as indicated by Dummied Out sprites of them having dialogue.
• Luxord's Lethal Joke Weapon was originally going to be the more character-appropriate dollar bills.
• A beta version of the game from 2006 features a MP gauge, suggesting that Kingdom Hearts II's magic system was considered for the game until being replaced by the finished game's panel system. The beta also featured a bar labeled LM, indicating that the game was originally going to have chargeable Limit Breaks rather than have them be dependent on how much HP the character has left like in the finished game.
• I.5 Remix was originally going to feature a full remake of the game, but due to time concerns, the idea was scrapped and the compilation instead just featured a remastered cutscene movie.

Birth by Sleep

• The game was first conceptualized in 2005 for Playstation 2 with Sora as the prototype protagonist.
• A Jungle Book world was planned, with Louie's Throne Room and a few unfinished areas being Dummied Out in the Japanese version.
• Pleakley was meant to appear in the Deep Space world, and a textureless model for him exists in the code.
• Laguna Loire was going to be the head of the Mirage Arena, but was cut because he was already appearing in Dissidia Final Fantasy.
• Both Leon's and Cloud's pasts were going to be touched upon in the Radiant Garden world, but as the world already had several members of Organization XIII appearing, it was decided that the world would have been too overloaded with characters.
• Following the death of Wayne Allwine, Nolan North was considered to succeed him as the voice of Mickey Mouse. However, his busy schedule, particularly with Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, prevented him from getting the role, and Bret Iwan was cast instead.
• The Blobmob Unversed was going to be a boss, but due to issues regarding the sheer amount of bosses in the game, it was changed to a normal (if extremely rare) enemy.
• The "A fragmentary passage" secret ending from Final Mix hints at what was going to be a sequel for Play Station Vita, but the idea was axed when the developers decided that there were already enough portable games. Ultimately, the ideas for the scrapped sequel would be developed into what would eventually become 0.2: Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage-.
• The Jump Festa 2008 trailer shows several scenes that were either cut from the game or altered for the final product, including Terra thanking Ventus for saving him from an unspecified incident at Radiant Garden, Ventus talking to Xehanort at the Olympus Coliseum, Terra watching Sora and Riku sparring, Ventus watching Cinderella arrive at the ball, Terra defending Ventus from Eraqus in Radiant Garden rather then the Land of Departure, and Ventus asking Terra and Aqua to "put an end to him" at Destiny Islands rather than the Keyblade Graveyard.
• One of the Titans was considered for an Optional Boss in Final Mix's Mirage Arena, but was ultimately turned down for Monstro.
• Emily Osment was originally considered for the voice of Aqua, but the role ultimately went to Willa Holland.

coded

• Re:coded was originally planned as a straight port job rather then the full fledged remake it ended up as.
• An episodic WiiWare release, a la Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, was initially considered, but ultimately never came to be.

Dream Drop Distance

• An inaccessible map prefixed "tp" contains a rough, untextured model of a ship, suggesting a Treasure Planet world was planned for inclusion.
• Sora and Riku were going to wear their outfits from the first game, but instead only do in the introductory battle and first Dive sequence, with Word of God stating the reasoning being that they didn't want fans to think that the game was a remake rather than a new game.
• Promotional images show Heartless and Nobodies intended as enemies for the worlds, though they were ultimately replaced with Dream Eaters.
• Sora and Riku's respective visits to each world were originally going to have far greater differences with each other. These include the Grid world having Sora return to Space Paranoids while Riku goes to the Grid, rather than both going to the Grid, and the Symphony of Sorcery world having Sora go through settings based on the original Fantasia while Riku would go through settings based on Fantasia 2000.

0.2: Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage-

• The game was originally planned as the first level of Kingdom Hearts III. But due to development increasing for that game, it was moved to the "2.8 HD Final Chapter Prologue" instead.
• Dummied Out files for the game feature a large amount of unused assets, presumably from when the game was still the opening level of Kingdom Hearts III. These include the first and second-tier versions of Fire, Blizzard, Thunder, and Cure spells, the Aero and Water series of spells (though the latter is translated as "Aqua"), Glide, Superglide, Ariel Dodge, and Holy.

Kingdom Hearts III

• The D23 Expo Japan 2013 trailer shows animated battle sprites, which were replaced with static ones for later trailers and the final game.
• The Jump Festa 2016 trailer shows Sora and his party battling Heartless outside the Mysterious Tower, which is not a playable world in the final game.
• The game's Ultimania states that models for the Fairy Godmother, Leon, and other Final Fantasy characters were in development, but scrapped before they could be finished. Leon and the Final Fantasy characters were scrapped due to the developers feeling that the Final Fantasy cast on top of the already large cast of the game would be to much, while no reason is given for the Fairy Godmother being scrapped. Ultimately, the models would end up being used in Re Mind.
• Nomura originally had the idea of relegating some of the 13 Seekers of Darkness to Cutscene Bosses so as to avoid the potential Ending Fatigue the constant fights against them could cause, but decided to make them all actual bosses so as to avoid upsetting anyone about their favorite antagonist getting shafted.
• The development team originally planned to use the command deck system for the game's combat, but Nomura decided to use Kingdom Heats II's combat system as a basis instead.
• The base game was originally going to give the 13 Seekers of Darkness numbered ranks like the original Organization XIII, but it was decided against due to wanting to avoid confusion regarding the numberings for members of both groups. Ultimately, by the time of Re Mind, the developers relented and the Limit Cut fights against each member gave them a numbered rank.
• Both Marvel and Star Wars properties were considered for worlds in the game, but issues with getting permission from Marvel Entertainment and Lucasfilm led to those ideas going nowhere.
• Dummied Out voice lines for Re Mind suggest that Roxas was originally going to have more than just Waterga in terms of magic spells. Ultimately, his Fire magic voice clip would eventually end up being used for Melody of Memory.
• According to an interview, Nomura considered cutting Xion as part of the 13 Seekers of Darkness' Limit Cut fights in Re Mind, but hesitated too late, as by that point she was already in development.
• According to an interview, Nomura wanted to include Oswald the Lucky Rabbit as a character in the game, but got shot down by Disney due to their claim that using him would be "too difficult".
• An analysis of the official chess set shows that one of the pieces representing the 13 Seekers of Darkness seems to represent Xaldin, indicating that he was at one point intended as a member of the group.
• According to an interview with Miyu Irino, there was an alternate version of Sora and Kairi's Destiny Islands scene in which Kairi doesn't give the Paopu fruit to Sora.
• During the series' 20th anniversary event, Nomura revealed that there were originally no plans to revive Roxas and Xion, but eventually decided to bring them back due to the fandom's love for them. As mentioned before, in the scenario where Xion isn't revived it's likely that her place in the 13 Seekers of Darkness was to go to Xaldin.

Melody of Memory

• An idea for a Kingdom Hearts take on the Theatrhythm Final Fantasy games was proposed as early as 2015, but was ultimately shot down by Nomura. It wasn't until Disney re-proposed the idea years later that Nomura changed his mind, feeling that a rhythm game lines up with the direction of the series at that point.
• Originally, the narrator heard throughout the game was going to be Chirithy rather than Kairi.

Miscellaneous

• Around 2002, Disney commissioned a Kingdom Hearts animated series... but it was passed on, despite excellent testing, to avoid contradicting future games and to respect Tetsuya Nomura's vision. Some storyboards can be seen here, and an interview with the show's creator here. Later in 2017, and again in 2018, Seth Kearsley was asking for a possibility of releasing the draft of the pilot episode on the internet. Unfortunately, he could never get the okay. Finally averted as of October of 2022, with the full pilot episode briefly online long enough for people to Keep Circulating the Tapes before Kearsley privated the video at the request of a longtime friend from Disney.^note Of note is that while the cast of the games did return for the series, Sora was instead voiced by Bobby Edner, as Haley Joel Osment was unavailable at the time to reprise his role. However, in 2020 new rumors surfaced that Disney was actually developing an animated series of the saga, this time as a Disney+ exclusive.
• An Android/iOS game called Kingdom Hearts: Fragmented Keys was in early development, but was ultimately scrapped. Its new worlds included locations from Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, and even Star Wars, which Disney had only recently acquired at the time of the game's development. However, it is likely that some of the concepts featured in the unfinished work appeared in Kingdom Hearts III.
• Sometime after the development of Kingdom Hearts II, Nomura wanted to tell the events of "Riku's period of absence"◊, wanting to explain his desperation fighting while Sora was sleeping and showing his control over the darkness. However, this never came into fruition outside of a few cutscenes in 358/2 Days.
• Dissidia Final Fantasy was originally planned to be a 'Kingdom Hearts' fighting game. The idea was ultimately scrapped after the developers realized that problems that would arise with creating a game that involved Disney characters fighting each other.
• After Kingdom Hearts II, Hikaru Utada was approached by the developers to write songs for the non-numbered titles◊, however nothing ever came out of this.