Kingdom Hearts 3 - Review

Okay so, Kingdom Hearts is a big pond to jump into, so I want to lay some ground rules for this review first. I’m a huge Final Fantasy fan, having played every mainline entry in the series since Final Fantasy VII, I would like to consider myself a big Final Fantasy fan boy. I played Kingdom Hearts back in 2002 on my cousins’ PS2 and found it to be tremendously boring and I just didn’t understand anything going on... This will be addressed in the review so don’t go crazy yet. Close to the release of Kingdom Hearts 3 (KH3), at the time I was working in a game store and it’s always required that you keep up to date with the new releases so I needed to know something about this series going into the third instalment (well… it’s actually the 12^th or so game in the series but whatever).

It should be noted, in preparation for the release of KH3 to the general adoring public, they released every single KH game in packages that tie into the story culminating epic that is KH3. Kingdom Hearts 1.5 & 2.5 Remix collects Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix, Re:Chain of Memories, 358/2 Days, Re:Coded, Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix. Following that as a final burst of promotion, Square popped out Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue because calling it just 2.8 was too much effort; this collection features Dream Drop Distance, Kingdom Hearts x, Birth by Sleep – A Fragmentary Passage. So, to FULLY understand the story of KH3 you would technically need to play all the above 8 games. Now, I was never going to play 8 games in the space of a few months before KH3 was released so I did what any sane person would do… just jump in and play it.

Here we are, game number 12! Kingdom Hearts 3 was released worldwide on January 29^th, 2019! You follow protagonist Sora, who is joined by his entourage; Donald Duck, Goofy, King Mickey and Riku. I know just how crazy that sounds, but it does work in this universe. The basic gist of the game is to restore hearts throughout multiple worlds based on Disney, Pixar and Final Fantasy intellectual properties. KH3 was met with generally favourable reviews and became the fastest selling and best-selling game in the franchise. I normally like to summarise the story before going deep into the gameplay review but frankly the story is so full of technical jargon and confusing, convoluted plot convenience with duplicates, multiple names and characters that flip alliances all the time. From the casual point of view (that’s me!), KH3 features nine worlds in the narrative. They’re a vast variety of worlds featured but it takes a departure from typical Disney worlds and this time focuses towards Pixar (which is owned by Disney, but whatever). The nine worlds featured include; 100 Acre Wood (Winnie the Pooh), Arendelle (Frozen), Kingdom of Corona (not the virus, it’s from Tangled), Monstropolis (Monsters Inc.), Olympus (Hercules), San Fransokyo (Big Hero 6, little bit San Fran and just a little bit Tokyo), The Caribbean (Pirates of the… you get it), Toy Box (Toy Story) and finally, Twilight Town (that’s a unique world from Kingdom Hearts). As the narrative continues you play through condensed versions from the movies these worlds are based on and Sora and co will play a part in completing the narrative of these films while the underlying narrative of Maleficent and her cohorts do a galaxy wide search for… a black box. Yep.

Gameplay in KH3 feels very… Kingdom Hearts. Now, I’ve only played the first game but it’s very evident that the combat hasn’t changed much throughout the year, but this is the most refined version of the combat system. It is a mixture of old-school turn-based action with some real time hack and slash mechanics. You can select attacks to your hearts-content (see what I did there?), Attack is an option and you can string together combos and huge attacks using this command. Magic is another option that allows you to Cure up some health, throw a Fireball or cast some Blizzard magic. You can also choose and use any item equipped to your characters through the Item command, this can recover health or magic points if you are running low during those tricky boss fights! Although the action takes place in real-time, the combat is command driven and you select all these options from a command menu at the bottom of the screen. There is a slight problem with this system as to select some items or magic can take multiple button presses and in the heat of a fast-paced boss fight, this can lead to many deaths. As such, I think it could massively benefit from a Final Fantasy XV style wait mode that maybe pauses the action while the player can choose an option.

As the story progresses, the protagonists team split up for narrative reasons and certain gameplay sequences play out from other character perspectives. This is a huge change of pace and changes the narrative direction in most cases, these are nice to break up the pace and give the player a bit of a break. One of the characters you control during these sequences is Riku, I couldn’t help but feel the game would have suffered less by having him as the main character. He is the opposite of Sora in many ways, he’s capable of being alone, doesn’t rely on others, doesn’t give into oppression and is super proficient with a keyblade. A story sequence at the end of the game that I won’t spoil too much, leaves Sora in a profoundly weak position and it’s Riku to motivate and help Sora get back on his feet. I understand that the player is under control of Sora to provide the emotional narrative a weaker character provides but there were too many moments throughout the game that I was questioning, “how did Sora make it so far?”.

One of the newest features in KH3 is the “Attraction Flow” (AF). AF is a super attack just like a Final Fantasy summon attack that deals insane damage but requires timed button presses. These attacks change depending on the weapon you have equipped, and you get new weapons from completing the main quests found in the worlds.  These AF attacks are based on Disney park attractions, Mad Tea Party, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, Grizzly River Run, Caribbean Pirate Ship and generic carousel attractions. Although these are visually amazing and deal loads of damage, it can’t be ignored that these are blatant advertisements for Disneyland Attractions. Visually this game looks perfect. Running on Unreal Engine 4, you can see a mix of amazing real-time graphics processing with the occasional pre-rendered video filling in some of the graphical gaps that maybe the current gen consoles are unable to do at a stable framerate. The game runs relatively smoothly but it is an uncapped framerate, so on a PlayStation 4 Pro especially, it must be noted that the frame rate can be extremely variable on more visually extravagant moments.

In conclusion, KH3 is a complicated game. Perhaps even the developers don’t understand the full scope of the narrative at the point. For a game to be 12 stories in with very little resolution, KH3 spins too many plates that feels slightly unfocused. Although the Disney worlds are fantastical, beautiful and well crafted, the absence of Final Fantasy characters and convoluted story constantly stop this game from achieving the praise it so desperately wants.