Kingdom Hearts games have adopted increasingly absurd subtitles over the years, and Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance is no different. In an interview with Famitsu magazine transcribed by SQEX.info, series director, Tetsuya Nomura, shares how he came up with the title.

At first, Nomura says, he thought of colours to associate with Kingdom Hearts 3D, and the ones that came to mind were black and pink. (You can actually see this reflected on the game’s website) This step of choosing thematic colours is common to all Kingdom Hearts games.

“We revealed that we were going to depict the Mark of Mastery Exam in Re:Coded, and we had decided roughly on the contents of the story, but at that point we were worrying over where to set it,” Nomura continues. “We thought about what Sora would have to do now, and about how ‘sleep’ was a key word in the second last title in the series, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep.”

Eventually, continuity from Birth by Sleep replaced “black and pink” as the inspiration for the game. Says Nomura: “‘Sleep’ and the ‘dreams’ that follow replaced ‘black and pink’ as our inspiration broadened, and then we thought of the keyword ‘drop’, as in how you ‘fall into dreams’. (Translator note: Or ‘drop off to sleep’.)”

The other major concept behind Kingdom Hearts 3D is that of “bold action,” which Nomura has touched upon before. Since Kingdom Hearts 3D, Final Fantasy Type-0 and Final Fantasy Versus XIII were all action RPGs that were in development simultaneously, Nomura wanted Kingdom Hearts to stand out. This is reflected in the game’s new battle system.

That having been said, Kingdom Hearts 3D does share a few things in common with Final Fantasy Versus XIII in particular. The way the game handles flashback cutscenes is inspired by the fully controllable cutscenes in Versus XIII, and Nomura has stated in the past that Kingdom Hearts 3D will be host to features that couldn’t be incorporated into Versus XIII.