Kingdom Hearts III

Kingdom Hearts 3 is admittedly the first Kingdom Hearts game I’ve played and I’d decided to give it a whirl in response to the very passionate fans I’ve talked to about these games over the years. At the end of the day I was pleasantly surprised with the tight and deeply varied game-play, whilst at the same time baffled by the game’s totally unrestrained storytelling and cringy execution. At it’s core this is a solid hack and slash title with cinematic battles, it has a fairly simple combat system where you just tap x to attack, circle to jump, square to dodge/block/parry, and triangle to unleash special attacks (sometimes inspired by Disney theme park rides); but it actually works quite well despite it’s simplistic nature. I really dig how each Disney inspired world introduced a totally unique gameplay element that reminded me of many other games; like the Titanfall-esque mech-suits in the Toy Box world, the Assassin’s Creed 4-esque Pirate Ship battles in the Caribbean, or even the Star Fox-esque spaceship battles you can encounter in the cosmic space in between the worlds.

It really feels like a lot of the environments and challenges were designed by passionate developers, they make every location feel like you’re really in the movies they were inspired by, I enjoyed the boss battles quite a lot too; they were all fairly varied and had interesting phases and sequences (the final battle is particularly well executed). The only gameplay mechanic I never really got into was the Gummi ship customisation; they always required you find too many parts and I never really saw the incentive to go out and grind for them, but it was still cool that they put so much depth into the game’s space combat given that it was a totally peripheral aspect of the game. Then there’s still the “Little Chef” cooking mini games, the Winnie the Pooh match 3 games, the mini kingdom arcade games, and the “lucky emblem” selfie challenges which just goes to show how many loving bells’n’whistles were crammed into this game.

Now I’ll talk about the story which is where this review takes a nose dive. While sure I didn’t play the previous games so I was generally lost as to the game’s more basic plot points; my problems with the storytelling go far beyond the game not adequately catching up newcomers. The writers jam so many different superfluous characters and plot elements on top of one another that the whole package is just one dizzying mess. I beat the damn game and I still couldn’t give you a decent plot synopsis as to what happened in the 30+ hours I played, that is; outside of a painfully generic light vs dark story where a painfully generic antagonist named Xehanort brings together a team of 13 painfully generic henchman to unlock a kingdom hearts thingy that controls destiny I think?... The nearly infinite supporting cast in this game is dreadful with very few personality traits making any of them feel distinct (this is particularly true of the “anime” portion of the cast), so many characters are introduced and referred to as being very important despite having next to no presence in the overall game (Xehanort being a great example of this). Sora (the main protagonist) acts like a teenager who’s mental development was halted at 8 years of age, the dialogue is omega cringe, the voice acting ranges from dulled renditions of famous Pixar characters with all of their charisma from the films sucked away, to blatantly horrible impressions of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck…

Most of the game’s main plot doesn’t even matter until the late-game, because for the bulk of the game Sora needs to travel to all of the different Disney world’s so that he can awaken his powers or something? Like they just come up with some super convenient reasons for all of these new Disney/Pixar worlds to have plot relevance because in the greater scheme of Kingdom Hearts 3’s narrative they aren’t relevant in the slightest and nor are the characters who reside in them. They also do this bizarre thing in a few worlds where they play out the narratives of the respective Disney/Pixar films shot for shot but pretend as though Sora, Donald, and Goofy were there the whole time. It’s kind of lazy but I wouldn’t have minded it so much if not for the fact that they jump around the plots of these films without explaining anything, and thus this left me – having not watched all of these movies – confused as to what the hell was going on. They clearly expected you to have seen all of these films and thus expected you to fill in all of the blanks yourself, which in my opinion is just poor storytelling; I would have greatly preferred that they just come up with their own isolated stories within these worlds like they’ve done in previous Kingdom Hearts games. That said I didn’t mind the stories within the worlds where they did in fact craft unique plots, the Monsters Inc. and Big Hero 6 worlds being my favourite examples of this.

Okay that’s it for me venting on the game’s story; believe it or not I actually do like this game for it’s enjoyable game-play, bold sense of variety, passionate world designs, and all of the little details and collectables that prove to me that the developers at least cared about what they were making. All it really comes down to is how much the game’s insufferable story impacted my experience, and while it did quite a bit… I would still recommend this game to folks who are more game-play oriented gamers. And overall I’m happy I got the chance to finally experience a franchise that has so much cultural importance to my fellow millennials, for better or for worse…

Kingdom Hearts III is the end of the "Xehanort saga". The roman numeral "III" may lead people to believe this is the third game, but it is honestly the ninth. In order to understand the plot of KH3, you have to play eight other games. Luckily, most of this can be achieved through the The Story so Far collection, which has five of these games in game form, and the other three in cutscene form.
For thirteen years, I have wanted Kingdom Hearts III. In that time, five other KH games came out, and none satisfied me. The "command deck" games, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep [キングダム ハーツ バース バイ スリープ] and Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance were just "good", if that, and served only to muddle the plot, which was already muddled enough by that point. In a story about people separating themselves into two separate entities, then merging those two entities back together, did we honestly, truly need a time travel plot on top of it all?
This isn't even touching upon Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days [スリー ファイブ エイト デイズ オーバー ツー], which I found awful.
On their face, the only KH games before this one that I replay are Kingdom Hearts [キングダムハーツ] and Kingdom Hearts II [キングダムハーツII]. I wanted more of that style of gameplay. KH2 perfected it, and expectations were high for KH3.

Gameplay-wise, KH3 pretty much delivers. The new keyblade transformation system is neat, but I honestly wish they'd just made them different weapon types full-stop, so I could switch from the Pirates of the Caribbean staff to the Monsters Inc. yo-yo Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening [デビル メイ クライ 3]-style.
The main thing the transformation system and the accompanying keyblade upgrade menu accomplishes is making it so every keyblade in the game can be considered useful for the entire game. In every other KH game, I ditch the default Kingdom Key as soon as I can, but the endgame stats screen said it was my most-used weapon this time around.
Magic is something I largely ignored in previous games (aside from cure and some defense spells), but KH3 makes it so obviously good that I used it all the time. It's probably too good, however, since Firaga basically just destroyed most of the later bosses. One problem I had, though, was that Blizzard spells seemed like just a worse version of Fire. I also would have liked Reflect and Magnet to return from KH2, but I appreciated the addition of Water spells.
I wish that they'd let me turn off attraction flow, though. It sucks, and I only ever activate it by mistake. All the summons are terrible, too, but that was the case in KH2 as well, so.

The Disney/Pixar worlds in this game are a mixed bag. The biggest problem with KH2 was that every single Disney world was just "the movie, but everyone says 'Sora, Donald, and Goofy' a lot". Half of KH3's worlds are like this, but half feature entirely new plots, written with the help of Disney/Pixar.
The Hercules world seemed to just be there to wrap up the plot of the movie, since KH2 didn't really finish it. Hercules's voice acting seemed really stilted for most of the world, and James Woods's voice isn't what it used to be.
The Toy Story world features a new plot, and is one of the cooler worlds in the game in that regard. Fans of Woody in particular will not be disappointed with his role. However, the constant presence of the giant robot enemies got really annoying really quickly.
The Tangled world just goes through the plot of the movie, but I honestly loved this world. I've never seen the movie, though, so the fact that a lot of the plot happens off-screen left a lot of plot holes as I was playing. Why is Rapunzel calling Flynn "Eugene"? How does she have the tiara if it was last seen in the tower? However, the visual design and the fun character moments with Rapunzel made this world second-best in the game, I'd say.
Now, I've never liked Monsters Inc. I didn't like the movie as a kid, and I don't like the world. The ending was cool, but I hated Sora's monster design. The original plot they created for the game was fine, but I simply wasn't a fan.
The Frozen world is ridiculous. It features the clearest example of Disney meddling in the series. At the beginning, a labyrinth is created out of nowhere for no particular reason, but that's the best part of the level. The heroes climb the mountain, watch Elsa sing "Let it Go" (because Disney), then get booted down the mountain in a horrible sled chase. After this, they meet Anna and listen to her talk over her past self singing "Do You Want to Build a Snowman", with horrible audio mixing. Then they go back up the mountain again, and get booted down again. It's an annoying world where Sora, Donald, and Goofy do basically nothing and only interact with the movie characters once each.
Luckily, that's followed by the best world in not just the game, but the series. The Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End level is absolutely brilliant. Not the story part, though, since it's just another "the plot happens off-screen" world in that regard. Jack Sparrow gets a really cool moment with a member of Organisation XIII, though, so that's nice. The real part thing about this world is that you get a pirate ship, and can sail from island to island and find treasure, and face other ships in sea battles. The underwater swimming sections are absolutely brilliant, because they just let you have fun and aren't trying to jump-scare you with horrifying undersea life, which is something I dread in games with water levels. I honestly wish this had been its own game. If they do DLC for this game, I 100% want more islands.
The final Disney world is based on Big Hero Six. It has an original plot as well, but the world is small and feels kind of rushed. It's a little section of the city, but aside from a cool plot set-up, there's really nothing to say about it.

Then we get into the original plot. I'm not going to talk much about it, aside from complaints. All I am going to do is complain from here on out. I'm better at complaining than talking about why I like things anyway.
Riku's voice actor sounded like he didn't try. A lot of his lines sounded like he got one take, without being able to read the script before hand. He kept emphasising the wrong word in his sentences, making his dialogue sound really unnatural.
I wasn't a fan of the replacement voices for Master Xehanort, Scrooge McDuck, Ansem SoD, and Mickey Mouse. I get that Bret Iwan has been voicing Mickey since Wayne Allwine's death in 2009, but I just don't like him. Chris Diamantopoulos voices Mickey in the Disney channel shorts, and I like him a lot better in the role.
As far as Ansem SoD goes, I will never get over the loss of Billy Zane. He was absolutely perfect in KH1.
Seriously, why did Sora just forgive Xehanort at the very end? Why didn't he demand to know what happened to Kairi? Why, after all the shit he caused, is Xehanort allowed to just stroll back to heaven with Eraqus?
Why did Sora go back in time after The Final World, just to do things the exact same way again?
Why was "The Power of Waking" so important if all Sora does is use it wrong? What did Yen Sid even want Sora to do with it?
After a big subplot of KH2 was Roxas learning to accept that he wasn't a real person, and learning to accept that his place was as a part of Sora, why does he get to come back? His ending was bittersweet, but that was the point.
Why did they think it was a good idea to end on a downer cliffhanger? After thirteen years of waiting for another good game after KH2, why were we slapped in the face with that ending?
Also, really disappointed that Scala ad Caelum was just a boss arena rather than an actual level.

Kingdom Hearts III slapped me in the face at the end, but the journey was mostly great. I don't know. I'm glad Donald and Goofy got to be relevant again, at least.