Editing Kingdom Hearts: Rodent's Havoc (section)

=== Early Production ===
Following the global success of ''Kingdom Hearts II'', Square Enix began exploring side projects that could extend the franchise onto portable platforms. The PlayStation Portable, launched in late 2004 in Japan and 2005 globally, was a major target.

While '''Tetsuya Nomura''' remained fully focused on other projects during that time, a proposal emerged internally, create a tonally experimental Kingdom Hearts game that would explore the themes of morality, memory, and identity—but with no Sora, no Keyblades, and minimal Disney hand-holding. Instead he got Shinji Hashimoto to be the Producer of the game.

Yoko had just wrapped development on ''Drakengard 2'' (which he wasn’t the main director for) and was pitching darker, more philosophical stories to Square Enix. Someone within the KH team, reportedly Shinji Hashimoto, suggested giving him free rein over a side project. During this time, Yoko Taro was making like a big project(more information on the Freaky Saga page) and decided to make this as a side-project.

From day one, Yoko Taro was adamant:

* “We will not use Sora.”
* “We will not romanticize Disney.”

Yoko was handed an internal team of KH-adjacent devs and the development team of h.a.n.d, with Yoko Shimomura returning for soundtrack duties, assisted by '''Takeharu Ishimoto''' and a few guest tracks by '''Hideki Naganuma''' for a few tracks in the game.

The first character that was pitched was to be Flint, husband of Hinawa, as the game would take a lot of inspiration from the cancelled N64 game that would lead to Kigdom Hearts. However the team wanted someone that was actually in the franchise so they chose on Dr. Hämsterviel who during this time was already getting attraction from the Pigmask Arc that dropped as well as his role in Kingdom Hearts II as an secondary antagonist. Fassad was quickly added but the third person in the game was confusing as Yoko wanted Gantu to be the final role but some writers preferred Fenneko from the recent Pigmask Arc who was teasing a love interest between them so she was added and Gantu would not be a main playable character but would have a presence in the story.

Code name: '''KH: Sharp Edge'''