Actually played BBS after DDD to get the lore in order before I jump into KH3, but I don't think I will write a review for a remastered PSP game that forces you to play 3 separate campaigns with their own records to complete. Just know that it's a fucking tragedy and can be summed up by this meme I made:
I am also watching a Days playthrough on the original DS just to make sure I didn't miss the small tidbits excluded in the cutscene viewer in 1.5. So the only readily available KH game that I have not played through is ReCOM, mostly due to the card system (it's always the card system). But I hope to be patient enough to give it a second try (had a level 19 PS2 save from god knows when beat my ass).
But enough about the old games; it's time to dive into the long-awaited "3rd" installment of the Kingdom Hearts series.
Kingdom Hearts III had a difficult development but was eventually delayed to finally be released in January 2019, dubbed the 13th month of 2018 by fans. The expectation of fans is what made this game such a divisive one; there are things to love and hate and people have very different opinions on what is and is not an improvement or downgrade. KH3 ditched the simple 2000s polygonal look in favor of the modern video game aesthetic: better lighting, larger and more detailed environments, higher definition character models, and many, many jaw-dropping effects. It is graphically impressive, a far cry from the previous mainline game DDD (which was initially released on the 3DS in 2012!). This is most prevalent in the PotC world where Sora the anime boy and Donald and Goofy the toons actually look like they semi-belong next to the hyper-realistic models of the movie cast.
Outside of its presentation, gameplay is pretty solid, there are some sections which frustrated me more than others but I just chalk it up to depth perception and lack of reading comprehension (my copy of kh3 is entirely in japanese). The areas are so big that Sora sprints rather than runs across the map, which also means the fickleness makes Sora run off the cliff 90% of the time when I turn the joystick. The inclusion of the flowmotion mechanic should make traversal faster and easier and fun in general but it's a huge downgrade from my experience in DDD HD, which itself is a nerf from the 3DS port. Can't reliably activate pole spins and the boost you get is not enough to get you into another pole or wall to start the process again... and I loved flowmotion in DDD! It's just disappointing that it's not as good as it was.
The various 'finishers' (attractions, form changes, situation commands) make for a really flashy combat experience and shotlock returns! I guess it's a given because 0.2 also has it so I don't know why I'm so surprised lol. Each keyblade has a different shotlock command to go with the form change and you can switch keyblades mid-battle now??? Was this new or did I forget how KH2 is played? Anyways it took me too long to figure this out. Speaking of battles, Shooting Stars 2nd form with the railguns are a god send because Larxene would have beaten Sora's ass if it weren't for the stunlock in shooter mode (R2). I even took a screenshot to commemorate this wonderful finding:
For the minigames, man, I dunno. I like there's a lot to do but the game is trying to be too many things at once. Especially the PotC world because I did not expect to play AC4 Black Flag in my Disney anime game lmao. Had to constantly remind myself that ramming ships do not do much damage and Sora has the power of a Calypso on his side (literally). All that to say - naval battles are not as good as what Ubisoft has done in AC, but this is Kingdom Hearts, so I don't fault them much. Apart from the world-exclusive minigames there's also Classic Kingdom, Game & Watch style minigames accessed from the main menu. Easy to get into and play, and the graphics are so fucking cute I can't-
Out of the featured worlds, Frozen has to be the worst. Fans disagree on a lot of things about KH3 but everyone knows for a fact that Arendelle is the worst. Someone put it best as "watching Sora watch Frozen" and that about sums it up. The Tangled world (Kingdom of Corona) also follows the movie closely but at least the gameplay is coherent; in Arendelle, not only do you not actually visit the kingdom its named after, there's literally nothing interesting to see there, you just climb the same ole snow mountain three times and gain a guest party member at the last section before the underwhelming (story-wise) final boss. There's even a whole Game Theory video about this world and how Disney fucked the development team last minute.
It's also interesting to point out that in KH1, the credits end card is Sora and Kairi at dusk by the play islands dock (the scene where Kairi asks Sora to ditch Riku); in KH2 it's Sora and Riku at the End of Sea after the final battle; and here in KH3 it's Sora and Kairi at dusk again, where they had their paopu fruits. Callback? Kairi has always been associated with sunsets, and Riku sunrise/day. The other end cards are the seasalt trio at dusk (358/2 Days), the wayfinder trio at night at the Land of Departure (BBS), Data-Sora (ReCoded), and Sora and Riku at the start of their mastery exam, again, at daytime (DDD).
You may ask: why play the Japanese version? One, I did not plan to actually play it, I bought it more as a collection back from the 2nd hand store Hard-Off. Two, all the talk about soriku's "their most important person" is why I decided to play it. And it also helps that I get to listen to Mamoru Miyano as Riku. Tl;dr: I did it for the soriku. Have some screenshots of the most romantic thing to happen in KH3 as a treat. And you can fight me on that because this whole cutscene has no business being played in slo-mo with the different angles and water effects.
Because I played it entirely in JP, I noticed that the world cards are all in English and even the end credits are the same except for the first portion where Japanese names are included alongside the English... which makes sense I guess because KH is property of Disney (a company from the US) and the Japanese Square Enix is only the developer. And "Seven New Hearts" is an actual term characters directly reference as a pseudo-loan word instead of translating it into something equivalent, which I thought they would, considering Organization XIII in JP is "XIII機関". Maybe it's also dependent on the length? I thought "Seven New Hearts" is a mouthful in JP when I first heard Larxene mention it lol.
The story is... less complicated now that I've played most of the games and read through the lore. We used to joke about how this series is anything but simple and clean, and to some extent it still is, but once you play through or read through everything it is comprehensible. But the secret movie really is some of the craziest shit I've seen in a while - Nomura must still be pissed about Versus13 and would reference it anytime he could lol. In the end, it's always best to just enjoy the games as is - the music, the action, and the whimsy of Disney.
Here are some random screenshots I thought were funny/interesting:
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