Kingdom Hearts III (2019)

Man. This friggin game. First you have this, where Woody from Toy Story claps back at a long-winded anime monologue from one of the villains:

And then you have Sulley from Monsters Inc grabbing another one of the villains, who has canonically been a real threat to heroes of the series, and throwing him through a door portal like a slab of meat.

Hindsight is a powerful ally, but I really get the impression the writers knew exactly how stupid this series had become and decided to poke fun at it.

So what is the writers' weird obsession with "ice cream"? It keeps coming up, even though IT'S OBVIOUSLY A FUCKING POPSICLE. Like do they think it's some kind of brilliant theming device?

So much of this game, and this series, is completely baffling, man. Mickey Mouse is trying to explain to me why there are 4 Xehanorts and why they're collecting vessels.

But this is what I signed up for...

So I'm FINALLY embarking on a mission I've been meaning to complete for a few years now... Finish the utterly incomprehensible Kingdom Hearts 3, and finally start the (supposedly very good) DLC.

When I first played it, at launch, 5 years ago now... I felt very mid on it. The series was a joke, nobody expected KH3 to be good, and I distinctly remember feeling like, "Man, this feels like a PS2 game." But I was also at one of the lowest points of my life during this time, working 12 hour night shifts. Before I moved to London and got my life on track.

Having now completed the first few hours and getting to the title drop? I'm... Actually really liking it. Revisiting it with a clear mind, without the anticipation and expectations... It's just good. For some reason I had a memory of the voice acting being REALLY bad, and it's simply not. Some line reads are a bit stilted, but the actors do a pretty good job overall.

Now OBVIOUSLY, all the stupid shit about hearts and darkness and hearts living in other hearts and all this crap, it's still stupid and incomprehensible. But knowing that the series wraps up a lot of that stuff by the end of this game? You know what, show me what you got, game. I'm ready for it now.

Oh boy, this was my second playthrough of this one.

I wasn't too fond of it the first time and felt pretty much the same this time around. At this point I'm still playing this series because I've invested WAY too much time in the main and side games to let go. Also for me it has an immense nostalgic value. I would however certainly not recommend this to anyone. One is simply much better off playing the 1st or 2nd Kingdom Hearts.

The plus side first. The combat is... kinda fun? It feels somewhat flowy, but the special stuff just feels way too much and quickly becomes repetitive. For me, it broke the flow of the combat. Running on walls was fun sometimes though.

I feel like trying to fit an entire Disney movie into a world, and then force-cramming Sora and his companions in it just didn't work well at all. Especially if one hasn't seen the movie beforehand. For example, the Untangled world just gets off the deep end way too quickly. Like how sad can I be for these characters that I know nothing about since I haven't seen the movie and the short cutscenes are way too little time to make any kind of connections to these characters in my opinion.

Just the whole script and the pacing of the cutscenes just feel so awkward and off to me. In the earlier games, sure it was awkward, but it kind of worked with the graphic and technical limitations at the time. But here with the realistic Unreal Engine graphics it just feels quite uncanny.

The main reason for playing, at this point, is for me to get to the ending. Even though the main bulk of this game was disappointing and weak, the ending really drives home the full package of convoluted plot holes so deep we will certainly NEVER see the bottom of any of them. After so many years of development, even a development in turmoil, I simply ended up feeling disappointed in the whole game.

And on top of it all, this game just kept digging an even deeper plot hole. I think, honestly, that this series is DOOMED to crash and burn. In my opinion, it already did, a long time ago.

A Series of My Favorite Video Game Songs with Lyrics

8. Don't Think Twice

Hikaru Utada knows how to crush a pop ballad. Don't Think Twice adds a sultry element that doesn't exist in Utada's other Kingdom Hearts' themes/really any gaming music I can think of. I not only find it resonant, but I think it elevates the gamespanning love story between Kairi and Sora. I prefer this song over Kingdom Hearts 3's other Hikaru Utada track "Face Your Fears", but that is also a certified banger. Do any of their other tracks pierce this list?

Yikes!

Kingdom Hearts is a nightmare on Switch: The cloud versions of the beloved series are nearly unplayable

These unreasonably priced packages are barely functional, and it’s hard to recommend them to anyone, even in the most ideal conditions.

I didn't know that DigitalFoundry did a video about just how painful streaming on Switch is (Polygon links to it in the article). Watch it below if you're curious. Ironically the only game I've tested over Switch streaming, Control, is the only one they felt was almost passible.

After roughly 13 years of waiting I was expecting more from this game but all things considered it was a pretty decent game, my biggest issue with it was that it was actually too easy. The addition of attractions to the game which mirrored Disney park rides was really cool but I found those as well as the more powerful magic spells were popping up constantly for me to use which made combat pretty easy. The story is hard to follow as I feel the series has lost itself over the years but I still love parading through disney worlds in an rpg setting and fighting with some of my favorite characters. Good game.

Gameplay:7

• simple easy to use combat but has some depth if you look for it, found it easier to just mash the attack button mostly, you could swap keyblades mid combat though which was sweet
• lots of collectibles and some side missions like cooking and synthesizing add some replayability to the game
• has a better and improved gummi ship with an overworld although I found it easy and again there was depth if you went looking, much more efficient to play simple
• didn't have as much disney presence as the previous games did and the ones that were in especially the later worlds just felt rushed.

Story:7

• play through some disney worlds we haven't seen before in KH with a unique story to further the lore of the movies or play through the events of the movies
• the series has got pretty confusing over the years and it's hard to know what's going on if you haven't played the others
• they could've spent more time on some of the disney worlds and fleshed out the story better, alot seem rushed.

Graphics:9

• graphics were awesome in this game, although they weren't ground breaking technological achievements
• completely captured the Kingdom Hearts vibe and the Disney worlds all matched their aesthetic with nice bright colors
• the attractions with their neon lights looked brilliant although they did get annoying and tedious to use
• all the keyblades looked amazing, it was great to beat a world and get excited to try and look at the easter eggs in the keyblade.

Soundtrack:8

• I'm biased to Disney music but I could see other people not enjoying it, only had a couple songs from the movies
• Different worlds having some different music was enjoyable although some tunes were the same which got annoying
• mostly music was bright and poppy and fit the vibe perfectly

Imgur Screenshot Dump

I honestly wish I liked this game more than I did... But I just couldn't! Kingdom Hearts 3 may not be a disaster, but it's certainly a disappointment.

Starting with the good things. The game is astonishingly BEAUTIFUL! I couldn't stop drooling over the graphics. The animations, different skills, sounds, music, the aesthetic and with just how smooth it played, despite a few hiccups when the screen got too busy. It's going to be hard to look at the other games after this one. Sometimes it was hard to tell what was CGI and what was in-game! Just WOW! Aside from how gorgeous it looks, it's also a JOY to play. The battle system is what kept me going until the very end. The freedom of movement feels pleasant. New additions, like the Keyblade transformations are awesome. You can pull crazy combos with ease and the satisfaction of making Sora and his team stronger is addicting. The gameplay hook keeps you going, even if it's a bit too easy, at times. And it's not only great to slay enemies and fight creative bosses, but it's also great to play the mini-games. Not all of them are good. Some are quite boring, actually. But when they get it right, it'll hook you up. It's also nice to see KH finally trying to wrap a few plot holes up (trying, at least). After so much build up, it's good to see characters coming together and things climaxing. I wish Disney worlds felt a bit more important to the overall story, but it was nice to visit some charming new ones, like Toy Box and Monstropolis.

Sadly, what I liked about the game didn't outweight what I didn't. The story and writing were the true enemies. A large chunk of it seemed irrelevant, clumsy and hollow. Worlds were cool to visit, but felt empty and lacked importance. Sora's final objective was supposed to be epic, instead, he spent more than half of the game going with the flow and seeing what happens. It was pointless and it took too long to ACTUALLY get going. By the time I got to the final areas, everything was thrown at the same time. It all happened too fast, while few things bothered to make sense. They even managed to open up more questions, instead of just ending it for good. Dialogues were dumb and VERY overexposed, emotional moments were lifeless, villains' goals were convoluted and death mattered not. It failed to grip me with any interest. KH3 is short, nonsensical, Gummy Ship missions are a mess, the optional boss is a joke, there are NO FF characters and the difficulty is a walk in the park. I mean, DAMN! Mini-games were harder than the final bosses. The DLC tried to save the final moments from being an utter disarray of ideas, but rehashed too many things and failed. The ending and the Limit Cut Episode were great, though.

I only recommend this game to huge fans of the franchise, like me. Other than that, you're better off replaying past games.

I really love Kingdom Hearts, played all of them, and i was so anxious to this release since the first trailer of it came out. When i was playing, i had the feeling that maybe it wasn't so good as i expected, not because the game is bad or something like that, but because it's not even half as good as the other ones

Everything in the Kingdom Hearts plot always had a meaning and an explanation, this is the first problem about this one. They try so much to force Sora's protagonism in some parts that it wasn't really needed to. Besides that, there's tons of deus ex machina through the entire game.

The Disney worlds in this game is so less interesting than in the others, that i just stopped playing the game for some days 'cause i was in a boring part. Surprisingly one of the worlds that i had more fun was the caribbean one, and it's basically a more simple Assassin's Creed Black Flag kinda game(and i really dislike Black Flag).

Even with all of this problems, it is a great game. The thing is that the other Kingdom Hearts was so much more than a great game, and that is what i was expecting.

I've been playing Kingdom Hearts since the series debuted in 2002. For me, reaching this point in the series feels like a chapter of my childhood coming to a close. I felt so excited and nostalgic as I started this up and got to work.

At first, I was blown away. There are a lot of things that KH3 does right. The graphics are the best they've ever been. Not only are they detailed and beautiful, but they are actually stylized to each world. No more of Sora looking like a Saturday morning cartoon while hanging out in the Pirates of the Caribbean world!

The combat almost overwhelms you with the amount of techniques at your disposal--attacks and magic, sure, but also Focus attacks, Link summons, Attraction commands, and Form changes. If you're a veteran, you'll pick it up easily enough. I found it worth it too, because all the options keep the combat fresh, exciting, and flowing. I never got a tired of a fight in this game.

The story is... Well, it doesn't make any sense. I've just accepted that at this point. However, this game is better than others. Being the conclusion to a saga, you're not thrown many new developments. You start the game with the mission to prepare for the final battle. You end the game by going to the final battle. Simple enough!

What did disappoint me was the thought that this game could do a lot more. To wait 13 years for a game and then beat it in 30 hours of game play is a big let down. The worlds in this game have expansive maps, but there are only about 10 of them. There are countless Disney movies to draw on for inspiration, some of which exist in the game but we never actually see (like Sword in the Stone, for example). What gives?

For that matter, even some of the worlds that are in this game only exist in cut scenes, or else to host just one battle. Expanding them into bigger worlds could have done a lot to fill out the game. Radiant Garden (and its Final Fantasy characters!), The Dark World, the Land of Departure... These would have been exciting arenas of exploration, but we barely see them.

At short times in the game, you get play as other characters. It made me wish we could have switched between them the whole time. Instead of watching Riku explore the Dark World in cut scenes, why not let me play as Riku and explore it myself? More game play time and more worlds in one easy solution!

With that off my chest, I definitely still really enjoyed the game. It felt like coming home to return to these characters and their silly dialogue. I got a little misty-eyed more than once. Add in the graphics and the combat, and you have a really fun time ahead of you. If you have already played the rest of the series (or enough of it to get the gist), do yourself a favor and experience this one too.

Only played through the prologue, but I am loving everything about this so far. There's so much nostalgia in this game, maybe since KH2 came out 13 years ago already, but I almost feel like I'm diving back into the PS2 games of my childhood. This silly story and its weird and wonderful cast of characters made up a big part of my younger life. I feel almost childlike (in a very positive way) by just returning to the series (or is it returning to me?).

Then again, there is so much that is fresh and new and exciting in terms of the story, the game play, and the graphics, that my adult self is having genuine fun too. I'm so impressed and in love so far and I can't believe this game is here. I'm just basking in it while I can.