A scattered dream that’s like a far-off memory; a far-off memory that’s like a scattered dream. I want to line the pieces up, yours and mine. The famous line from Kingdom Hearts 2 plays a more significant role in Kingdom Hearts 3 than the player originally suspects. Without diving too deep into any actual game spoilers, Kingdom Hearts 3 leaves players with more questions than they had going into the long-awaited sequel. After 14 long years and eight additional titles, fans of the Kingdom Hearts franchise finally have the opportunity to get their hands on KH3.
At E3 2018. we had the opportunity to try out parts of Olympus and Toybox and from our experience, we had high expectations for Kingdom Hearts 3 going in. The Olympus demo granted us the ability to see the new flowmotion system in action while giving a brief glimpse at how attractions would work during combat. The Toybox demo allowed us to experience the expanded party system by welcoming Woody and Buzz to become a part of the team rather than side characters that the player must choose between. The demo also revealed that players could rotate between Keyblades and would have the opportunity to change their shape based off of the weapons special ability. Looking back, those two demos provided only a small glimpse at what Kingdom Hearts 3 had to offer and left us craving more.
At the start of the game, the player is greeted by a familiar scene, the stain glass mosaics. Unlike in the previous Kingdom Hearts, memories lined in picture frames circle the mosaic. This aesthetic allows players to get a brief glimpse as to what occurred earlier in the franchise but does not paint the full picture. Players have the opportunity to decide what type of character they want Sora to be by selecting certain pictures that appear while in the starting sequence. Wisdom, Vitality, and Balance are the first three choices the player must make and ultimately determine if Sora will be a caster, tank, or fighter. The player is then tasked with choosing between the roles of the Guardian, Warrior, and Mystic; these choices determine whether Sora is primarily defensive, melee, or magical. Like previous Kingdom Hearts, players have the opportunity to choose the play style that is unique to their personal preference.
Kingdom Hearts 3 ‘s story takes place after the events of Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance. Sora has lost the power of Waking, the ability to restore lost hearts, due to his encounter with Xehanort. Sora is instructed by Master Yen Sid to recover his lost power while the six other keyblade wielders prepare for the inevitable battle. Riku and Mickey are tasked with locating Aqua and discovering the whereabouts of Terra and Ventus. The start of the game features a joke by Square Enix regarding the long development time and the titles that take place between two and three; as Sora, Donald, and Goofy land in Olympus, a ticker for Kingdom Hearts 2.9 is revealed and the players are greeted by an old foe.
The storyline of Kingdom Hearts 3 focuses primarily on Sora recovering his strength, trying to thrawt the newly formed Organization 13, and discovering the location of the two other keyblade warriors with the assistance Riku and Mickey. The game features two additional side story lines that appear to have no connection towards the main game of Kingdom Hearts 3 but could be important if KH3 gets additional content. Early on in the game, Maleficent is shown looking for a mysterious black box, while Young Xehanort Informs Sora that the worlds have been split in two. The game features twelve worlds, eight of which are inspired by their corresponding Disney films.
The biggest flaw in Kingdom Hearts 3 is the way that Square Enix sets up the story in a few of the different worlds. In Olympus, the developers give players the opportunity to stand alongside Hercules as he battles Hades and the Titans. The Olympus world focuses on retelling the story of Hercules while introducing the Black Box side story as a minor detail. Later on in the game, the player has the opportunity to travel to the worlds of Corona, Arandelle, and Port Royale. All three of the previously mentioned worlds suffer from the developers and Square Enix retelling the story that each world is derived from while cutting out significant moments that leaves clueless gamers confused. The most poorly devised moment comes when the notorious Hans, from the Frozen movie, is turned into the world’s villain without any context. Players are required to have seen the move to understand his role in the Frozen World. On top of the infuriating cutouts from different movies, the Tangled world Corona features a flawed scene where Gothel states that she knocked out the two ruffians after destroying four nobodies. Either the dialogue was directly ripped from the movie or the writing staff did a poor job with that scene.
The last issue we will discuss is the role that Kairi and Axel (Lea) play in Kingdom Hearts 3. Building up to the release of Kingdom Hearts 3, Kairi was made out to be a prominent character in the battle to come against Xehanort, however, she is dropped down into a supporting role alongside Axel. Developers felt the need to show Kairi and Axel interacting with one another in beautifully arranged cutscenes however new gave the player a glimpse as to how their training was going or what they were doing. Why make Kairi a damsel in distress yet again after giving her a keyblade? Why are players granted the opportunity to play as Aqua, Sora, and Riku but not the other two characters?
The Kingdom Hearts 3 story was enjoyable to play through but nostalgia ultimately plays a strong part in the player’s enjoyment of the game. The game features some obviously apparent issues and it will be interesting to see how Square Enix addresses the obvious issues. KH3’s story wraps up in an interesting way making the player feel great about defeating the head boss. Sadly it leaves players guessing as to what the fate of Sora and company is while speculating what the two side stories introduced actually mean.
Kingdom Hearts 3’s gameplay suffers minorly from the sheer amount of options that Square Enix added to the game. The Gummi Ship mini-game returns to Kingdom Hearts 3 with the player having the opportunity to explore the universe and find treasure to improve the Gummi Ship or Synthesis materials. Players are forced to battle a boss before entering most worlds. Square Enix introduces a new camera mode that focuses on a new collectible called Lucky Emblems. Lucky Emblems grant the player boosts, items, and synthesis materials. The player is also tasked with annoying travel tasks that could eat up a decent amount of time.
Players have the opportunity to rotate between Keyblades for optimal battle tactics. Players now have the opportunity to upgrade Keyblade, making them no longer obsolete. Keyblades can evolve during combat two times providing their own unique combat style. The three Keyblades players choose, impact their overall combat stats. Players have the opportunity to choose between magic or strength as their primary fighting style. Combat focus predominately on chaining attacks in combat to unleash more powerful attacks. Keyblade wielders have the opportunity to challenge Battle Gates to level up and test their merit.
Similar to previous Kingdom Hearts, the player can summon a variety of allies ranging from Meow Wow to the wild loose cannon abomination, Stitch. New to the Kingdom Hearts franchise is the Summon Attractions feature. Warriors of Light can summon popular Disney Attractions to aid them in combat against the heartless, nobodies, Organization XIII, and all others that oppose them. Ride Big Thunder Mountain, Mad Tea Cups, or Blaster Blaze through attraction flow. Attraction Flow is triggered by defeating an enemy with a green indicator around it.
Kingdom Hearts 3 includes a variety of mini-games to entertain the player. Players can py Square Enix’s rendition of Bejeweled and early handle held 8-Bit games. The player can cook with the Little Chef (Remi) to create a variety of meals to aid the player with various stat boosts. Players will have to bear with the bejeweled mini-game in Winnie the Pooh in order to complete that world and get the Honey ingredient for Remi’s cooking recipes. The final and least time-consuming mini-games are the Classic Kingdom Mickey games. There other mini-games throughout the worlds but the player must discover them either through the story or discovery.
The game does feature multiple ways for the player to get around but two of the most annoying are: the goofy shield slide and the Rapunzel hair swing. The Goofy shield slide is an optional form of transportation in the Hercules world but is rather hard to control without practice. The developers even include a shield mini-game where players must collect “flan” in order to achieve a high score. Although the Goofy shield slide is annoying, it is not the worst form of transportation in Kingdom Hearts 3. The player is forced to wait for Rapunzel to swing them across certain terrain. The swing is rather annoying due to the fact that it is forced and you have to wait for Rapunzel before you can initiate it.
The controls for Kingdom Hearts 3 are relatively simple but there is a lot for the player to choose between. The player has the opportunity to roll, jump, cast magic, and swing their giant keyblade around. Players can bind certain abilities to a fast cast menu in order to fight efficiently. A majority of triggered attacks are activated by pressing Y or X however some moves can be mistakenly used due to the sheer amount of bonus options the game provides; luckily, there is a button to allow players to rotate between triggered abilities. Players can also switch between one of three keyblades using the directional pad. The player can choose how they want Donald, Goofy, and other allies to behave during combat.
Kingdom Hearts 3’s music is great for a generic video game title but feels rather lacking compared to its Kingdom Hearts counterparts. Three of Hikaru Utada’s songs are featured throughout the game and create emotional moments throughout the game. Players can listen to Simple and Clean, Face My Fears, and Think Twice while enjoying heart touching cinematics. Most of the worlds felt authentic thanks to the background tracks and special effects. Unfortunately, Square Enix felt that players would enjoy Frozen’s Do you want to Build a Snowman or Let it Go more than Tangled’s I have a Dream or Now That I See You. The battle sequences are filled with energetic music that gets the player ready for battle but not much more.
Disappointingly, Kingdom Hearts 3 suffers from the nostalgia that has been building for the last 10+ years and feels like it is trying to do so much in a limited environment. The game lacks a critical mode and provides little challenge throughout. Only the final boss sequence of the game feels like a challenge and that is due to the sheer number of things that Xenohort throws at the player during it. Square Enix did a wonderful job creating most of the worlds but sadly, Kingdom Hearts 3 feels more like an exploration game rather than a slash and cast RPG. The music feels great and helps the player push through but does not make up for some of Square Enix’s lazy writing. The removal of certain key scenes from Disney movies makes the story illogical and at times infuriating. Probably the worst aspect of Kingdom Hearts 3 was the array of art styles between worlds. Some of the worlds in the game were noticeably older than their counterparts and felt like they were lazily created by the Square Enix team. Hopefully, additional content will be added to Kingdom Hearts 3 to explain where all the Final Fantasy characters are, why they cut out certain scenes, information about the side stories, and why Donald is actually useful now.
Overall, if this was not the end of the Xenohort Saga the game would have more enjoyable, however the way they ended the game felt like a cheap copout. KH3 feels more like a bridge rather than its own entity and that ultimately disappoints fans of the franchise more than waiting years for a game. Almost all the new additions to the game were rather enjoyable but it felt like Square was trying to do too much in the game rather than focus on the art and story. Kingdom Hearts 3 is rather enjoyable to play bit will end up being the black sheep of the Kingdom Hearts franchise.
