Kingdom Hearts 3 - Fun, but flawed

Kingdom Hearts 3 has some major flaws, but it’s still a fun game.

Is six years too late to review a game?

I already pushed the envelope by reviewing Homefront: The Revolution four years after its release, then streaming a playthrough another two years after that, so I’m going to say that Kingdom Hearts 3, which came out in 2019, is fair game. I don’t have time to worry about how much time has passed.

I’ve always been a pretty big fan of the Kingdom Hearts series. The first one, which came out in 2002, was a relatively fresh concept for its time. You had Disney and Final Fantasy characters sharing a universe. As a teenager who was absolutely obsessed with Final Fantasy VII, the fact that I’d get to see characters like Cloud and Sephiroth sharing the screen with Donald Duck and Goofy was so insane that I couldn’t help but love it. Kingdom Hearts 2 came out three years later and only improved upon the concept, adding more characters and giving them more of a presence, while also improving the gameplay by increasing the fluidity of combos and adding more abilities for Sora. Even in 2009, when I did a half-hearted review of Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy VII, I was still excited about the franchise.

I didn’t really play the other games in the series, save for Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. I absolutely hated the card-based combat system, and even though I managed to make it to at least halfway through Organization XIII’s castle (I think I stopped playing at Marluxia?) I just never got the hang of how exactly it worked.

Not playing the other games in the franchise meant I had to spend a little bit of time learning about the lore, which entailed reading wikis and asking my friend Rotten Tom, who is obsessed with the lore and has played all the games. Who the hell were Terra, Ventus, and Aqua? Why were there three Xehanorts running around? What’s the “Mark of Mastery”? Not playing the other games outside KH1 and 2 put me at a bit of a disadvantage when it came to understanding what was going on by the time Kingdom Hearts 3 rolled out.

I bought the game in 2022, but held off on playing it until recently.

Kingdom Hearts 3 is… actually pretty good.

The game definitely holds up to the legacy of the first two in the series, and I’d go so far as to say that it improves on it.

I was impressed with how fluid the combos were. KH2 had a pretty fluid combat system, but the combos in KH3 were buttery smooth. Bouncing between enemies was so effortless and slick that at times I didn’t even realize I was taking damage while I was doing it (my fault for not properly utilizing the dodge). Not once did the controls feel cumbersome or clunky. I always felt like I was in control of Sora, and every time I took damage or just messed up I knew it was on me, and I wasn’t being cheapshotted.

I also liked some of the unique features that the individual worlds offered. The boat combat in the Pirates of the Caribbean world was pretty fun, though it’s kind of obvious that it was inspired by Sea of Thieves. Things like piloting the toy mechs in the Toy Story world, grinding around the streets of San Fransokyo, or even sledding down the snowy hills of Arendelle were cool additions to the series and broke up the monotony that some people may feel from just hacking away at hoards of Heartless or Nobodies.

The specials were fucking insane, and I loved them. From the keyblade transformations to the Disney World rides, shit was nuts. One minute I’m flying around in a chariot raining lightning down on my foes, then the next I’m pounding my enemies with a carousel or Splash Mountain. What can I say, I’m a sucker for absurdity, and watching Sora suddenly whip out a giant pirate ship and start smashing Heartless and Nobodies is hilarious.

My favorite improvement by far though was the Gummi Ship.

In the previous games, I found the Gummi Ship segments to be annoying and tedious. They just felt like unnecessary slogs, and I loathed when it came time to travel to a new world. But Kingdom Hearts 3 greatly improved on the Gummi Ship combat system to the point where not only did it no longer feel like a chore, but it was actually fun. Whereas the Gummi Ship parts in KH1 and 2 were linear, in KH3 it’s more open world. You’re free to fly around and explore as you please, collecting munny and ship XP, blowing up asteroids to collect ship parts and synthesis materials, and either fighting enemies or avoiding them. The whole thing has a kind of Star Fox 64 feel to it, and fans of the N64 classic will definitely appreciate it. The ship building system, which I never got the hang of in the other games, is still there in KH3, but it’s completely unnecessary. I recommend getting the Endymion ship, then beating the Schwarzgeist and unlocking the Golden Highwind, because once you do the Gummi Ship combat becomes insanely easy, and you can basically spam the barrel roll and lasers to get A rank in virtually every battle.

But even a good game has its flaws, and Kingdom Hearts 3 is no exception.

The biggest flaw in this game, by far, is the cut scenes. Hoo boy.

I’ve never been a fan of cutscene-heavy games. I’ll make an exception for the Yakuza franchise, since the focus is more on the story than the gameplay, and the stories are good enough that they can get away with it. JRPGs in general are known to be heavy on cutscenes, so it comes with the territory.

With that said, Kingdom Hearts 3 feels like playing a Telltale game. It seemed like every five minutes I was being thrown into a ten-minute-long cutscene. I don’t mind sitting though a long cutscene occasionally, but it got excessive. Yes, you can skip them, but then you’re missing parts of the story. On top of that, you run the risk of suddenly getting thrown into a boss battle with no warning.

People defend this by saying that KH2 had more cutscenes. While this is technically correct, the difference is that the cutscenes in KH2 were spaced out more effectively. In KH2 you’d get 10-15 minutes of playtime followed by at most 5-10 minutes of cutscenes. In KH3, you get 5-10 minutes of playtime followed by 15-20 minutes of cutscenes, followed by a hoard battle, followed by another 10 minutes of cutscenes, followed by a boss battle, followed by 20-25 minutes of more cutscenes. Don’t play this shit too close to bedtime, because you never know how long you’ll be forced to go in between save points.

The cutscenes wouldn’t be as bad if the dialogue and its delivery weren’t downright awful. I get that it’s a kid’s game (a lot of Kingdom Hearts fans tend to forget this obvious fact), but even for a kid’s game, the dialogue often comes across as cheesy and childish. I’m not expecting Sora to drop F bombs or anything (though it would be hilarious if he told Xehanort to go fuck himself, called him a bald prick, then threatened to shove a keyblade up his old wrinkly ass), but Sora acted more like a six-year-old than a teenager, constantly whining about friendship and telling the bad guys that they’re being big old meanies.

The half-assed delivery of the lines made them even worse. I know the game is dubbed from Japanese, and I know that thing often get lost in translation. There’s a reason I prefer to watch my anime in Japanese with English subtitles, after all. But it doesn’t excuse the piss poor delivery from pretty much everyone. Half the conversations sounded emotionless and phoned in. I’m curious if the original Japanese voices sounded like this, but I’m not sure if I want to hear what Japanese Donald Duck and Goofy sound like- oh hell, of course I do:

Another minor gripe I had was the bullshit required to get the Orichalcum+ to build the Ultima Keyblade. It’s obviously not supposed to be easy to get the strongest weapon in the game, but it also doesn’t need to be tedious. Specifically, I’m talking about the minigames. Specifically, the ones with the flans. Specifically, that goddamn cherry flan in Olympus. The Goofy sled handles like absolute shit. Having to get all ten treasures in the Frozen slider game was annoying enough, but trying to navigate the streets of Thebes was next to impossible for me. I realize this is partially a skill issue, but get fucked, that shit is needlessly hard.

These flaws aside, I genuinely had fun playing this game. I won’t be 100%’ing it (seriously, fuck that cherry flan), but it’s still a fun game with lots of extra stuff to do. Between the story and all the collectables and minigames, I could easily see someone putting 50+ hours into this game and enjoying themselves doing it. Even if you’re not looking to get 100% and just want to play through the story, you’ll have a good time. Sure, you’ll have to suffer through cutscenes full of ham-handed dialogue that sounds like it was written for an episode of the Care Bears, but the story itself isn’t bad, and the gameplay is fun.

I give Kingdom Hearts 3 a 7/10. It’s a great addition to the series, and I’m looking forward to Kingdom Hearts 4.

Angry_Jerk

Adam “The Angry Jerk” Baker is the CEO of The AJnet Organization and Editor-in-Chief of AJnet Magazine. A grizzled internet veteran of over 20 years, he writes about politics, culture, and whatever else manages to annoy him that day.

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