I've just platinum'd, and I have a lot of feelings about this game

[Yuri Andrade 40]

So, I decided to do what I never do: talk about it. This is going to be a kind of review, which many of you already made or read, but I didn't, so far. I've been avoiding the internet for the past weeks and now that I've finished the game, I just wanna talk about things I really liked, things I think could be improved upon and the thinks I really didn't like.

Spoiler

Worlds:

Liked: Saying these worlds are gorgeous and vast would be an understatement. Not only that, they are also very interesting to explore, with great platforming and hidden stuff. I really liked that KH2 fixed the awkward (opinion) platforming from KH1 by removing it altogether and that, now that they know how to and can do these things better, they actually went on and did it. I remember reading and interview with one of the heads of this game, and this person said it's kinda the point to make the player feel a different experience in every world. Dude, they got it!

Could be improved: 1) Due to how big they are, I really wish there were actual maps for these worlds. This is one of the things I really think could make life easier, especially when you're looking for treasures and lucky emblems. Worlds like Arendelle and San Fransokyo were especially confusing for me, and I know I would've had a much better time searching for stuff in those if I had a full map on my Gummiphone or something like that. 2) Seeing you get the ability to double jump and fly later in the game, I think it'd be interesting for all the worlds to have chests or things you could only reach using these abilities. This would even add some replay value.

Didn't like: Number and quality of original worlds (Shocker). I'm really okay with the Disney worlds we have, but the lack of original ones, especially when you get to the final portion of the game, was a really let-down. I didn't really mind what they did to Twilight Town (didn't like it either), even though the could've at least added the clock tower. I did mind, though, about the adjacent part of the Keyblade Graveyard (Scala and The Final World). I'm not gonna lie, I was expecting to spend A LOT of time exploring Scala. Dude, look at the size and all the parts of this world. But no, here's your final battle. Hope you like it. And don't get me started on the Final World. Nomura said it'd be a world in which you could do almost anything you wanted (or something like that. I don't remember the exact words) and all you really get to do is collect some Soras and spin s**t around. Casual. And that's it. TT and the Keyblade Graveyard (+in-extras) being really all we got from original worlds, I believe, is a disappointment for everyone who plays this game.

 

Combat:

Liked: You are a god. There are some downsides to this, and I'm going to get there in a bit, but mate, look at all those things you can do! And you actually do them!! Do you know those times when you're playing a game and there's this cutscene where your character uses those really cool moves that you don't get to use during gameplay? Yep, KH3 is NOT it. And I like how the game itself plays with it. For example, there's that cutscene in San Fransokyo where you transform your keyblade twice to deal with whatever, and you can ACTUALLY do it in-game! Honor mention on this game's final form and rage form, cause I didn't think anything could match KH2's ones. This game does.

Could be improved: 1) Ability to remove stuff instead of just improving on them. Let's face it: attractions, gorgeous as they are, come up WAY TOO FREQUENT and they are WAY TOO BROKEN. And instead of an option to remove or at least limit them, we get three or four attraction extenders. What? Also, the same could be said for friend attacks (I forgot the actual name of those, but you know what I'm talking about). 2) Basic combo modification. Not complaining about what we have. i really like the combos, especially the unison attacks. But come on. Some combo modifiers and finisher pluses would keep the basic combat less repetitive and they wouldn't kill anyone, seeing this game is...

Didn't like: ...EASY AS EASY CAN BE!! Man, I played this on proud mode, and I didn't break a sweat. This may seem like me bragging about it, but I assure you it's not. Due to the amount of stuff you can do during combat, and due to the fact that they didn't let you remove some of this stuff, it's very unlikely you're gonna have a hard time in this game. And what makes me sad is that, instead of addressing this by putting a critical mode or reducing the appearance of situation commands, they just fill your screen with enemies to fake combat depth.

 

Gameplay mechanics:

Liked: Wall running, swimming and ship combat are way better than I thought they would be. And I say this because it's very easy to mess up these things. Ship combat is boring in every single game I've played that had it in it, water levels are always the most frustrating due to how slow you always get and I've never seen good wall running, actually. I mentioned them specifically because I was always a bit afraid of them breaking the pace of the game, and that was not my experience. Aside from that, Flowmotion and Shotlocks are not broken. YEY! Photo mode is fun, and I really liked how they are useful for moogle missions and lucky emblems. Also, getting new selfie poses on battlegates was..unexpectedly hilarious ='D.

Could be improved: 1) Wall running works fine. Wall combat, though... But, since it's only present in a few parts of the game, I'll put it here and say that maybe removing them altogether wouldn't be bad =P. 2) How you get or level up the gameplay abilities. And, yes, this could be me comparing KHs 2 and 3, but I don't think so. The forms in this game have unique abilities and I think it'd be way more interesting to level them up and get those than to just have them pop up on your screen on random times. Like, why do you get glide after beating the battle against the hordes? 3) Soft reset could be a thing. And I'm only putting this here for one very specific reason which I'm going to talk about in the minigames section. (My review have sections. I feel like a library now.)

Didn't like: The Gummi Ship. Though, to be fair, I ended up getting used to it later in the game, since you need to in order to get an Orichalcum+. The whole idea of one (or three) interconnected spaces is excellent. I just don't fell like it's excellent for Kingdom Hearts, especially with how clunky the controls of the ship can get. There is some fun in there. It's not all bad. I liked photographing the constellations, for example... aaaand I think that's it. Combat and overall exploration are not really that interesting to the point where you want to fully customize your ship to do them.

 

Minigames and moogle:

Liked: Contrary to common opinion, I actually like minigames in most games I play, and I find most of KH3's ones to be very funny. But there's not much to say beyond that. I'm just gonna mention the Flan minigame, cause it reminded me of the Mushroom 13 one, only a bit less frustrating (yeah, I'm that bad). As for the moogle, I enjoyed it's comeback and, as I've mentioned before, I also enjoyed the integration between photos and new items to be crafted.

Could be improved: 1) The whole bistro thing. I loved the Little Chef and I even loved getting new items for recipes, despite having Donald and Goofy constantly nagging me about good places to find new ingredients. What I didn't love very much, though, were the ways to make the recipes. In fact, the hardest trophy for me to get was the one where I had to excellent all the recipes. The ones where you have to break the eggs are just broken. Either that or I'm worse than I though. And here's why I think having soft reset wouldn't hurt, instead of just closing and reloading the game every time I ran out of ingredients (yeah, because I wouldn't farm those, sorry). That's not to mention that I haven't seen the need to actually consume the meals, since the game was easy the way it was. 2) 100 Acre Woods. I'm not gonna dwell on it or how small it was. I've never been a fan of this world in any KH to be honest. But having the same minigame three times was just... unnecessary, I guess. 3) Moogle option to see crafted items. This one is just something very simple, but I thought it very unpractical to go out of the moogle menu, open and menu and check my gummiphone periodically to see the items I'd already crafted. So, I just think it would be easier to keep track if this option was moved or copied from the gummiphone to the moogle menu. Again, very small stuff, but it makes a difference when you're 100%ing the game.

Didn't like: Classic Kingdom. I especially didn't like the feeling of opening large chests that could contain awesome items only to find a new uninteresting game. Again, this is just my opinion, and I'm sure some people liked those, but I didn't and I felt this was one of those tactics developers use to put strange extra stuff in the game only to have players remain more time playing. But Classic Kingdom was, for me, a bad version of this tactic. At least setting a record was just playing each of them once.

 

The Story:

Liked: Well, I always loved KH's story. It was very important for me growing up and, to quote Sora "I am who I am because of them", but in my case, "them" being these games and all these characters in this unlikely crossover universe. And I really loved this final chapter as well. It's not flawless in any way, but the interactions and the attention to details were great. You get funny moments that are really funny during the Disney worlds. You get emotional segments that are really emotional during the game. And man, MAN, the final battles are everything I always wanted to see. You pairing with the other Lights to face off the Organization was a masterpiece.

Could be improved: All the things above being said, I found the pacing to be really awkward. First off, you get some glimpse of the New Organization in the Disney Worlds, but since you only get to visit those once, that's all the interaction Sora will have with them till very late in the game. Then, you get these story segments after you finish each worlds, basically, and they get to show you what's going on with the characters, but they never give you the feeling that something epic is about to happen. Like, you see Pete and Maleficent in most of the worlds, and she even says a Keyblade War is upon them, but it's not like the rest of them is super worried about this. They are training and stuff, but at least I didn't get this feeling I'm talking about... until you finish the Disney worlds. Then, and only then, all the epic stuff is thrown right into your face and you don't really get enough time to process all of it. You do get to see things you always wanted to see, like Aqua and Ventus being saved, for example, but everything happens so fast and so close from the next event, that you're forced to cut your tears in half, even though you still get to feel emotional. So, to get to the point, I wish this game had a better division of the epic stuff. I didn't really get enough time to think about it, but I'm pretty sure if half of what happens in the end happened in the middle of the game or, like, in between worlds (like some parts already do), wouldn't hurt the overall conclusion and it would really help the pacing.

Didn't like: 1) The game introduces some new elements and it just leaves them hanging. You get some new information from the Epilogue and the Secret Reports about Xigbar being Luxu, for example. But I feel like this is one of those things that could've been said and explained at once so that the next saga would begin "from scratch". Another example is Xemnas telling some of the Organization that they were chosen for the ancient connection they have with stuff. This is being shown in Union X, which I only follow through Everglow's channel, but he saying it in KH3 helps nothings, since it's not going to be used anywhere else in the game. There's also the girl from Axel's and Saix's past, that could at least be shown in some cutscene or whatever, but she is only mentioned by them very late in the game, quoted in the Secret Reports and that's it. 2) Kairi. I'm not going to spend too much time here. But what they decided to do with her as a character was low. And I'm not even saying about the part where she's kidnapped and "killed". It's more like she keeps being useless and not at all well written, in my opinion. 3) Yozora. Nomura is really like my ex-girlfriend. He really knows how to hold a grudge. I mean, the guy was kicked out of FF Versus XIII, but it seems like he wouldn't let it go to the point where the next episode of KH, being it the new saga or a future DLC, will be a "new version" of Versus XIII. This, itself is not entirely bad, but the whole cutscene was action-less and shallow and I don't really think it was a wise decision to show Sora all well after the bomb of him not being with the others in Destiny Island after saving Kairi. We all know he's gonna be in the next saga as the protagonist, so he's gonna be fine. But you just watched tears being cried for his absence, and the player could share those tears, but instead we are left off with an uninteresting secret scene in what may or may not be the real world.

 

Overall likes: 1) Visuals and Soundtrack. Both are so great I feel like I could spend hour here just talking about specific stuff. 2) Character interactions while in game. Since it's new in KH, I think it was really well done. Honor mention to the helium gas in toy box and the extra dialogs in Arendelle where Sora is both feeling cold and in love with the snow. 3) The "Kingstagram" we have on leading screens. I just thought it was a fun addition 4) The attention to details in every single aspect of this game.

 

 

And that's it for today, I guess.

Some notes before I go:

I'm not a native American. I'm actually from Brazil (so yeah, I'm American, just not from the North one where English is Spoken =p), so I'm sorry if my English sucks in some parts of this review or in all of it. I only felt like sharing an opinion and so I did.

I stressed it while writing but I'm going to say it again: everything above is just my humble opinion. If you end up reading all these lines, first of all thank you, really, but second, feel free to disagree and show your own point of view.

I might've forgotten to say something I wanted to, so if I end up editing, I'm gonna put the new stuff in other color.

Thank you for your patience and for being an awesome community. We all love this series very much, and I only wrote so many lines because I felt like you might relate to loving KH so much to the point of doing so.

Tl,dr yet another review-ish.

Edited February 7, 2019 by Yuri Andrade

[littleTSUBAME 483]

Really good and fair review! I must say I agree on most of the things you mentioned. The weird pacing was the main thing that bothered me, next being the lack of difficulty. I picked Standard just in case it would be difficult (since I didn't have time to get stuck) and that made the game truly a cakewalk. I didn't even try at some points and the game just wouldn't let me die. Can't believe this, but I was actually angry at Donald for healing me. This is just a pet peeve of mine, but it annoys me when games let me get away with not putting in any effort (there's an easy mode for a reason, standard should be at least mildly challenging in my opinion).

The combat was still VERY fun and pretty smooth, so I'm not that mad. Even though it was too easy, I still had fun.

Spoiler

Personally I wasn't too bothered with Kairi though, I kinda liked her even, which seems to be an unpopular opinion. She did feel a bit oit of character to me, though. Might be a VA thing, but Kairi always seemed way more lively to me. I enjoyed her interactions with Lea, though. I was never a huge Kairi fan though, and I had low expectations going in.

The second thing I disagree is the secret ending, but I feel like the ones who are mainly hyped up about it are either those who really wanted Versus XIII OR who are TWEWY fans (me). I guess this is something that flies over your head if you're not familiar with TWEWY, but if Sora indeed is in TWEWY's Shibuya, that raises some interesting possibilities for the next game (or DLC) that might tie in with the ending quite well.

 

[Xionisbae 0]

Good review I feel like this is my favorite game in the series overall. I agree the game was a little easy until I got to the final boss it took me a few tries. One thing I which could improve in the game is the Gummi ship I feel like its kind of a pain to control. But also I never really cared for the gummi missions in the series lol. Story is prolly my 3rd favorite in the series, I actually like the fact

That Luxu is Xigbar I always felt that Xigbar/Braig was always sketchy you see it in BBS and it makes me think back to Back Cover/Union X when MoM was telling Luxu your job is watch and help make sure the prophecy happens. I always had a feeling that Xehanort was just a tool. With Xigbar Personality he is the perfect one to be revealed as Luxu!