In a recent interview, Tetsuya Nomura addressed many points regarding Kingdom Hearts II, the upcoming sequel to the 2003 Kingdom Hearts (PS2) and last year's Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (GBA). Nomura elaborates on many of the games features, length, characters, and the likelihood of a Kingdom Hearts III.

Points Addressed In The Nomura Interview: In addition to the Sora's red and blue "Brave" forms, there will also be a multitude of others, each with a different fighting style. Nomura expects that the player will find one that suits them best and stick with it.

For the Brave forms that use two keyblades, the player will be able to choose which particular two to use.

The word on game length has changed from "slightly less than twice as big as KH" to "at least twice as big as KH". There are also some concerns as to whether every aspect of the story Nomura wants included will make the final cut.

There will apparently be more than one battle sequence against an army of foes like the one seen in front of Hallow Bastion in many of the trailers.

Gummi ships will be far more customizable than in KH. Nomura also describes the sequences involving gummi ships as "an attraction ride at a fair".

A large portion of the game's story will take place in Mulan's world.

The yet to be named kid in the white shirt will, to a certain degree, function to smoothly introduce the KH storyline to those who didn't play the original KH and/or Chain of Memories. His name will be made known in the near future.

The Thirteenth Order are in control of the new type of enemy called The Nobody, which are a cut above the usual Heartless.

Apparently the widely held belief that Nomura did not use Final Fantasy characters that he did not originally design in the KH games was because of legal issues was untrue. In fact, he is considering using them in KH2.

Nomura's final statement was that KH2 will close up all of the loose ends of the story, leaving little room or reason for another sequel. However, Nomura adds that if KH2 is especially successful, he might find a way to reopen that door.

Kingdom Hearts II is scheduled for release in Japan and the US sometime in 2005.