I have fond memories of the original Kingdom Hearts. I remember running around Traverse Town (I can still hum the theme off the top of my head), I remember fighting titans in the Coliseum and fighting in the streets of Agrabah alongside Aladdin. Kingdom Hearts was a little weird for me, mostly because I never liked Final Fantasy stuff, but I thought the story behind it all was intriguing and the stakes were high enough for me to overlook all the odd behavior in favor of saving the princesses from pure evil.
Over fifteen years later, I returned to the universe of Kingdom Hearts. All the games between the first game and Kingdom Hearts 3 didn’t seem that interesting, or I was in high school and too cool to play a game like Kingdom Hearts. Regardless of the exact reason, I skipped the eight (or so) other Kingdom Hearts games. But the fact that Kingdom Hearts 3 was going to include Pixar movies intrigued me. It was enough to reinvigorate my interest in the series.
I shouldn’t have come back.
Kingdom Hearts 3 is a game that reminded me why I should be extremely hesitant to pay full-price for a game. The hype got to me. The nostalgia fueled a day-one purchase.
To my surprise, the catch-up cinematics were surprisingly easy to follow and I felt like I was ready to digest whatever oddities the game threw my way. I anticipated being a little confused, but I never expected to be so thoroughly disappointed in nearly every aspect of the game as I was.
I’ve struggled with getting around to writing this review. The draft has been floating around in draft mode for weeks. I would open it up, type a few sentences, start remembering how much I disliked the game, and then stop. It’d be very easy for me to type all sorts of low opinions back-to-back-to-back-to-back, but that’d just be a waste of my time and yours. And more importantly there are other games I want to get around to writing about — like the Division 2[!] and all the amazing indie games that have trickled out over the past few months.
Kingdom Hearts 3 was a mess, from start to finish. The story was all over the place and segmented in such a way that the Pixar levels felt forced in. The exploration of the Pixar worlds was sometimes a clunky re-telling of the movies themselves. When Kingdom Hearts 3’s story took a siesta for a rendition of Let it Go in the middle of the Frozen world, I could only sigh in defeat.
That was the biggest issue with Kingdom Hearts 3. Nothing I did ever felt like it mattered. The story doesn’t make strides until the last fifth of the game, once all the Pixar worlds are completed. Even then, the final resolution of the game left me frustrated since even the meager story-focused scraps the final portion of the game presented to me were swept away and invalidated by a last minute 180-degree plot turn.
Even the Toy Story world, which I was most looking forward to, suffered from having no real purpose. I started in Andy’s room as a little Sora action figure, and then five minutes later I’m sent to a toy store (not even Al’s Toy Barn from Toy Story 2, just a generic toy store) where I spent 80% of the rest of the Toy Story content fighting Heartless and listening to some bad Buzz Lightyear voice acting.
The Pirates of the Caribbean world was my favorite. After acquiring a pirate ship of their own, Sora, Donald and Goofy are left to sail around islands, disembarking their ship to explore the jungles. Ghost ships, courtesy of Davy Jones, appear to harass players as they sail between islands. Destroying enemy ships and collecting white crabs allow the player to upgrade their pirate ship to move faster and do more damage.
I enjoyed hunting for the white crabs and battling the pirate ships. I spent more time than I expected to just sailing around and sinking the ghost ships, it was fun. But, when it came to the end of the level, my ship was so powerful that the world’s finale boss battle was a weak breeze.
When my favorite part of the game is the part that ended on an uninspiring note, you know my opinion on the game is going to be quite low.
Since I’ve beaten Kingdom Hearts 3, I know they’ve added some extra mechanics in to increase the difficulty but I have no interest in whacking my way through hordes of shadow monsters in levels themed around Disney movies. The story just isn’t interesting anymore, there are no clear stakes. It’s not about saving people, it’s about tracking down some Hot Topic rejects who can teleport anywhere they please.
Unless you’re a huge fan of the Kingdom Hearts franchise, stay away from this mess. Or pick it up in a few months when it’s heavily discounted. Don’t get burned like I did.
A retail copy of this game was purchased by Epic Brew.
