Excuse Me, There's Mario In My Kingdom Hearts

Although the original kick off between Square Enix and Disney happened in an elevator all those years ago, Tetsuya Normura has divulged what significantly influenced the original Kingdom Hearts.

As it turns out, Shigeru Miyamoto's mastery is a large part of what inspired the game play of the original Kingdom Hearts. In an interview published today in Japan, when asked what his favourite games are, KH Director Tetsuya Normura also set the record on Kingdom Hearts influence,

...Super Mario 64 had a big influence on me. We used many of the fundamental elements in Kingdom Hearts. As for the purest experience as a player, it's the Tekken series. Every time a new entry in the series comes out, I play it until I've beaten it with every character.

Super Mario 64 debuted around the same time as Tetsuya's first major venture as a character designer with Square Enix on Final Fantasy VII. Kingdom Hearts' lead characters had long been in Tetsuya's head, but after speaking with Disney, Kingdom Hearts started development in 2000. So while EGM's Mushroom Kingdom Hearts is just a pipedream, it does seem Final Fantasy + Disney + Mario = Kingdom Hearts, fancy that.