Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory utilizes a gameplay style that's never appeared in the Kingdom Hearts series before. Instead of being the usual action-RPG installment, Melody of Memory will be a rhythm game. Players will battle Heartless, Nobodies, and other KH enemies by timing button-presses to the beat of Kingdom Hearts BGM tracks.

As one can imagine, this initially surprised most players following the series, but in a recent interview with IGN, Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory Co-director Masanobu Suzui cleared up how the game ended up the way it did. According to him, the game takes inspiration from Theatrhythm Dragon Quest.

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For context, Suzui is the founder of Indieszero, the developer behind Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, another rhythm-based Square Enix title. Theatrhythm Final Fantasy inspired Theatrhythm Dragon Quest, which sees the player battling enemies by playing out Dragon Quest music from across the series.

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Suzui figured that Kingdom Hearts OSTs are just as influential to their series as Dragon Quest's are to theirs, so why not make a Theatrhythm-styled Kingdom Hearts? Suzui pitched the idea to Kingdom Hearts series director Tetsuya Nomura, but Nomura shut it down. Sometime later, Disney joined in on the pitch, and by that time, Nomura felt the series was ready for it, and that's how production for the game started.

According to Suzui, Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory will take players across and beyond the entire Kingdom Hearts series through the franchise's music library, just like Theatrhythm Dragon Quest did. The game won't be able to use every Kingdom Hearts track, but even those that don't make the cut gameplay-wise will have some of their refrains included.

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory releases November 13 on PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

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Source: IGN