Editing Kingdom Hearts: Rodent's Havoc (section)

=== Late Production ===
Around late 2007, as the game neared alpha, Sony Computer Entertainment Japan expressed a desire to keep the game Japan-exclusive due to its surreal and grotesque tone (a harder sell in North America for a Disney brand). Heavily stylized game with a lot of Japanese tones in the game(which didn’t test well with U.S. focus groups) and the emphasis on gameplay loops like repetition, side-quests, and cryptic lore.

This deeply frustrated Yoko Taro and the Square Enix production team, who had developed the story to be universal and not some forgottened Japan-only Kingdom Hearts game that nobody will remember. In early January 2008, Square Enix held '''a''' tense internal summit between Japan, North America, and Europe publishing leads. Marketing data from test screenings in France and Canada showed surprising interest from older teens who grew up with the first ''Kingdom Hearts'' game but wanted something darker. After pushback, Sony reluctantly approved a global release on the condition that localized versions tone down a little bit for specific audio logs and dark imagery.

Internally, Square Enix prototyped '''a''' PS2 version of ''Rodent’s Havoc'' as early as Q4 2007. This port was meant to launch a few months after the PSP version (Q2 2009), feature upscaled textures, 60 FPS combat, and dual-stick support control scheme, and use the KH2 engine as a foundation.

However, several issues led to its cancellation:

# Sony's shifting priorities toward PS3 and PSP
# Localization complexity for a second version on outdated hardware that was almost a decade old at the time.
# Internal resistance from Sony Japan, who felt the game "wouldn't resonate internationally"

The PS2 build was about 40% complete before Square Enix shelved it permanently. 

The game was getting completion by Yoko Taro who deemed this would be one of the best games on the PSP that made it more unique than the DS as Sony's E3 presentation would publically announce the game worldwide with more footage other than some teasers. Even there was a demo of the game and an opening for the PSP game in the beginning of the introduction of the song then Yoko Taro shows up with a Chopsuey plush and introduces the game with trailers and even a demo available in the booths. People knew that this game existed from Square Enix's blogs but the many fans thought it would be shit due to Sora and other main characters wouldn't be in the game so it was mixed there as the release trailers rolled out as Yoko Taro's team would complete the game two months later and then got released albeit some cut content had to be deleted due to the game having a set to the Holiday of 2008.