Trivia / Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory

• Distanced from Current Events:
  • The two Pirates of the Caribbean worlds featured in the franchise (Port Royal from II and The Caribbean from III) do not receive any acknowledgment in the game and are not even narrated by Kairi when she recaps the events of Kingdom Hearts III. This was likely in response to the controversy surrounding Johnny Depp, which had been a hot topic around the games release. The "Sanctuary" level does not include any footage from Port Royal, and the "Don't Think Twice" level, which features footage from all the worlds in Kingdom Hearts III, only includes scenes of Sora, Donald, and Goofy in their Caribbean outfits and omits Jack Sparrow or any other characters completely, unlike the other worlds which feature Sora's party members.
  • The Kingdom of Corona, is referred to by Kairi as "a fairy-tale kingdom". This is probably because saying the word "Corona" would have felt insensitive considering a coronavirus pandemic that ravaged the world around the time the game was released. The game's menus in all languages and the Japanese dub still refer to the Kingdom of Corona by name.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": A minor case - Melody of Memory marks the first overseas usage of the original synthesized PlayStation 2 mixes of "The Other Promise", "Rage Awakened" and the Christmas Town tracks from Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, as "Rage Awakened" was rearranged for its usage in Birth By Sleep^note enough that both arrangements of the song are in Melody of Memory's track list and every subsequent international port of Final Mix had the game's entire soundtrack reorchestrated.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Or rather, chooses the soundtrack. The selection of songs from Kingdom Hearts III is very limited since both games were in production at the same time, leaving the Melody of Memory team little to use.
• Refitted for Sequel: Roxas's voice clips of him casting Fire magic are actually recycled from Kingdom Hearts III: Re𝄌Mind. He was originally going to have access to all six forms of magic as a playable character and even had voice clips for each of them, but ultimately, he could only use Water and Cure in the game.
• Troubled Production: Downplayed, but Nomura noted that the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down the latter stages of the game’s production, most notably the English dub’s voice recording, implying the game would’ve released sooner had it not been for the pandemic.
• What Could Have Been: Co-director Masanobu Suzui and indieszero first pitched the idea of for a Kingdom Hearts take of Theatrhythm Final Fantasy in 2015, but Nomura declined the idea. It wasn't until Disney revisited and re-proposed the idea sometime later that Nomura changed his mind, having believed that a rhythm game would line up with the direction of the franchise by then.