Kingdom Hearts 3 Thoughts So Far

                The fated day has arrived… And I’ve played Kingdom Hearts III y’all! I planned on writing this post like three worlds ago, but I kept playing. Oh well. I am getting ready to begin the last (I think)  section of Disney worlds. This post is going to be my impressions so far with a non-spoiler section mostly focused on gameplay followed by a spoiler section mostly focused on story. I am being fairly conservative about what is a spoiler (i.e. I won’t say what order you travel to worlds or when you receive certain abilities) just to make sure anyone that doesn’t want to know that doesn’t get spoiled. Spoilers will include Chi/Union X because I have theories about where this game is going. Let’s get it going!

                The gameplay in this installment is good. Maybe the best in the series. It has a lot going on but is incredibly satisfying. In particular, I love the team attacks. These existed in KH2, but they took MP and weren’t that cool looking. Some of them are very similar (i.e. Donald’s firework attack), but some are completely new, and each world has specific attacks for the temporary party members (Shout out to Mike and Sully). The only one of those I have an issue with is in Arendelle; it just was not that fun for me.

                On a similar note, I have mixed feelings about the Attraction Flow moves. I really love Magic Carousel, Mad Tea Cups, and Big Magic Mountain (which seems like it can only be used in one specific fight). These all look cool, deal a ton of damage, and are fun little minigames to breakup battles. Pirate Ship and Splash Mountain are fine. They look cool and deal good damage, but I do not find them particularly fun. And literally everything about Blaster Blazer sucks. It is not super responsive and doesn’t look particularly good.

                Flowmotion returns and boy is it nerfed. Not in a bad way though, it was incredibly overpowered in KH3D and that has been rectified. It may have been slightly over corrected, but I do enjoy it as a piece of my arsenal as opposed to most of it. The biggest problem with it is that the worlds are so open that it can hard to use effectively sometimes because there is nothing nearby to chain Flowmotion moves. Having said that, Sora is still incredibly mobile though. He can run up (most) walls and gains a bunch of mobility abilities throughout the game

                Let’s talk Keyblades. Because the Keyblades are rad. There do not seem to be very many, maybe 15ish, but I like almost all of them so far and they are all unique and useful. I really appreciate that last point after so many games having obviously better Keyblades outside of very specific purposes (*cough*Kingdom Hearts II*cough*); every blade in this game is a viable option. They have unique stats, transformations, and Shotlocks. I love the Keyblade forms and transformations as they are a more than adequate replacement for Drive Forms which I was disappointed to learn would not be returning (600 years ago when that was confirmed). The Shotlocks are all useful and function just like in Birth By Sleep so if you liked them there, you will like them here.

                The last thing I want to talk about before getting into spoilers is Gummi Ship gameplay. Full disclosure, I have never loved the Gummi Ship. It was dull in the original game and is a good change of pace in the other game. I really like the open world exploration aspect of it in this game. I think it is fantastic and incredibly fun to fly around, blow things up, and find treasure spheres. Then you run into a Heartless ship and it turns into a visually uninteresting version of the KH2 missions. Remember the sweeping camera changes and cool backgrounds in that game? They are replaced by a static “space” background that plays more like you flipped the perspective of Space Invaders than the prior game’s arcade shooter feel. But enough of that, let’s talk about the Gummi Ship creator. It is fantastic. If you are on Twitter, you have probably seen all the amazing things artistic people have created. It is truly astounding. And super easy. The entire process has been streamlined so as to make me want to experiment with it as opposed to just using the prebuilt ones that game provides. After I finish the story, I think I will focus some more time on the Gummi Ship to see if I like it any better.

SPOILERS AHEAD

                So, the story………………… It is basically nonexistent thus far. There are little hints in each world, but there has yet to be any real movement. The most movement has come through Ienzo of all people. He has almost figured out how to bring Roxas back. Kairi has had exactly one seen and she and Lea just talked about themselves and their feelings (which is good, but could I get another scene?). Mickey and Riku have not done much outside of the five seconds you play as Riku and his Keyblade breaks. There is a scene where Ansem, Seeker of Darkness fights Aqua (Who doesn’t have/use a Keyblade for some reason) and then asks Ansem the Wise about some girl that he hid away after their experiments with darkness. I think this will end up being tied to a scene where Xemnas talks to Marluxia, Larxene, Demyx, and Luxord about their history with the Keyblade. I am not 100% caught up with Union X (Close though), but I am assuming this mean Demyx and Luxord have/will show up in that story because Xemnas is presumably referring to Marluxia’s and Larxene’s story in that game. I think the girl Ansem and Ansem spoke about is Strelitzia somehow. There is also Luxu’s box that Maleficent and Pete are searching for. I have no idea what is going to happen with these two plotlines, but I think they will either be the final twists of the game or tied to the secret movie. Not sure how, but that is my theory.

                The other thing I really want to talk about is how salty Nomura clearly is about Final Fantasy Versus XIII. There is a lot that he clearly wanted to incorporate into that game that is in this game. Like air stepping and the fact that the Tornado Titan is literally just the Leviathan fight from Final Fantasy XV. Or the Verum Rex cinematic from Toy Box that is clearly based on an idea for Versus XIII. Riku’s design is clearly inspired by Noctis and Yozura, the hero of Verum Rex, looks very similar to Riku. I am here for it all though. Let the man make his games, even if they take forever.

               

                That’s really it y’all. I will be back in a couple days to record more thoughts. Theoretically, it will be after the last Disney worlds, but before the end, but we will see. Take care everyone!