Kingdom Hearts Keyblades Were Originally Chainsaws

Rather than slaying Heartless creatures with the now iconic keyblade weapon, players could have been using something more brutal in the Kingdom Hearts series.

In an interview with Famitsu (via 1up), Kingdom Hearts producer Tetsuya Nomura revealed that the initial weapon concept designs for the series weren't so kid friendly.

"Actually, the first weapon I showed Disney was a chainsaw. It was this chainsaw-like weapon that I had a rough sketch of when I first showed my concepts to Disney. Everyone got this scrunched-up look on their face and nobody said a word in the entire room. Dead silence. And I thought 'No, I guess this wouldn't work, huh?'"

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall during that meeting. It would have been interesting to see how different the series may have turned out had the chainsaws remained.

http://uk.ds.ign.com/articles/100/1002401p1.html

Too bad they didn't say the same thing about the belts and zippers.