Review: Strap in, guys, because this is going to be an experience. First off, I've been playing this series since I was in high school, over 10 years ago. So, yes. I'm one of those fans who have been waiting an eternity for some news about Kingdom Hearts 3. The fact that it is actually a game and I have beaten it is actually shocking. I'm not going to go into specific spoilers about the story, but I am going to talk about the different worlds that are involved so be aware of that if you don't want to know which Disney stories you become a part of in this game.
I'll go ahead and say that I wish we had more familiar worlds brought into Kingdom Hearts 3. A big part of the story is Sora's ability to go to these Disney worlds and connect with the characters there. All of that felt unnecessary when you consider the only repeating worlds in Kingdom Hearts 3 are Olympus and The Caribbean. You do still get summons, and some of the characters you summon are old friends, Simba and Ariel for example, but it still makes Sora's journey through these old worlds feel unnecessary. There's also the backstory of this game that felt a bit off. Organization XIII are back to find the 7 pure lights or something that were in the original princesses from the first game, but it isn't really gone into further. We don't get a whole lot of follow up information about the pure lights. They just aren't in the original princesses (not really explained) and Sora has to find them again (not really explained). That was frustrating.
The other thing that bothered me was how incomplete this game felt. I think this has more to do with my expectations from Kingdom Hearts 2. In KH2, to get the whole story, you're expected to go to each Disney world twice. I liked that because it helped make it seem like there was more to this story. Kingdom Hearts 3 didn't do that. Once you go to a Disney world and complete it, you're done with that world. You can go back, but there is no additional plot to be added. That's a big reason why the game felt unfinished. I thought they could have done so much more with the worlds we were given, and they could have done better to flesh out the plot of the pure lights.
I will commend these guys on making one of my least favorite worlds from Kingdom Hearts 2 into an absolute favorite world in Kingdom Hearts 3. In KH2, I hated going to Port Royal in large part because of the zombie pirates and how frustrating those fights were. Thankfully, that movie plot is finished in KH3, and you even get to sail around in a pirate ship and do sea battles. Undoubtedly, there are games that do sea battles better, but I still had a ton of fun just shooting enemy ships. I'm already thinking about replaying this game and I'm excited for that specific area. I still hated Olympus, but I also really enjoyed my time in Toy Box. I loved going through the world of toys and seeing those characters interact with Sora.
My favorite aspect of the game overall was finding the lucky emblems. They're little images of Mickey Mouse ears that you can find in every world of the game. Some people might find this aspect tedious, but I had a ton of fun. I liked the little nod to Disney Land, but I also enjoyed having to pay attention to my surroundings. I did have to look some of them up, but I found a surprising number of them on my own. I also loved helping little chef out with cooking. None of the minigames were particularly difficult, but I got excited every time I found new ingredients because I immediately wanted to go back and see if there was more I could cook.
Like I said, I'm not going to spoil aspects of the underlying story. I did appreciate seeing how all the games came together in this world. Even the weird mobile game that I played for a couple months and gave up on. I was also surprised, but satisfied with how things wrapped up at the end. I stand by what I said about this game feeling unfinished. It seemed like they were more concerned about having some lose threads around to pull in future games, and they cared less about making this game feel finished. I get that this game has been over 10 years in the making, but I certain elements were cleaned up a little better.
I'm not going to rate this, but I did enjoy my time overall.
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