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zaliachimeraThis has taken me longer than I would have liked. I've finally decided to post in 2 parts. This one will cover my criticisms of the game. I go into some depth in it and it's quite long.
Don't get me wrong, I really loved KH3 and had a great time playing it, but my criticisms tend to spark more discussion and thinky thoughts, while the good things tend to involve more pure 'SQUEE THIS IS AWESOME' which makes for shorter posts.
Also I know sometimes if you're really loving something, you're not in the mood to read criticism at that time, even if you might agree with it. Hence... 2 parts.
Needless to say, there are a lot of spoilers below for Kingdom Hearts 3!
The Problem of Kairi
The biggest and most glaring issue with the game and the franchise as a whole, is that no-one seems to know what to do with Kairi. In fact, it's pretty obvious that the people making the game are not really interested in her.
In Kingdom Hearts 1, she was the damsel in distress, the Princess of Heart, saving whom is the goal for both Sora and Riku. She's also, while possibly not the source, the excuse for the conflict between Sora and Riku. She vanishes at the start of the game and is only seen again close to the end.
In Kingdom Hearts 2, she's been benched, her memories of Sora erased, until she eventually ends up a prisoner of Organisation XIII. While she does escape with Axel's help, and discovers she has a Keyblade, she is not present for any of the fights that Sora and Riku take part in and has no real impact on the story.
With Dream Drop Distance, there was a glimmer of hope! She was training to be a Keyblade Wielder with Lea. Surely this boded well for Kingdom Hearts 3, with the clash against darkness.
Sadly, it was not to be. Despite her status as one of the Seven Pure Lights, and her training with the Keyblade, she doesn't actually show up a whole lot. And when we finally think that she's going to be involved in the combat, and take her place as a Keyblade wielder... she is unceremoniously kidnapped and 'killed' to fuel the actions of Sora and Riku. Again.
Kingdom Hearts is not overrun with original female characters (and I'm fairly sure that KH3 does not pass the Bechdel test) but none of them are worse served. There's Aqua, who is awesome, and Namine, and Xion. Larxene is a lot of fun as a villain in this game. But Kairi is set up to be the female lead of the series, and yet she has significantly impact on the story than any of the others. Aqua is a protagonist in Birth By Sleep, important enough to get her own side-game in Fragmentary Passage. Xion is one of the core characters in 365/2 Days. Namine, Kairi's Nobody, plays a large part in both Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts 2. Larxene is just fun in Chain of Memories and in KH3, with her plotting and manipulation.
Even Olette, a side character from Twilight Town, has more effect on the plot due to her own agency when she helps to rescue Ansem the Wise from Xemnas.
It's disappointing. I want to like Kairi. The few moments we have with her, when she's talking with Axel, are great. But she exists purely to further Sora's story.
It actually proves to be a bit of detriment to that too. Part of the plot involves Sora and Kairi sharing a Paopu. Unfortunately, Kairi is such a non-entity, and has had so little screen time, that it's hard to invest in their relationship. Sora last and Kairi last saw each other for any length of time two or three years ago before KH1, when they were 14. They've had so little screen time together that the relationship, while inevitable because 'designated love interest', feels... shallow. In the context of what we've seen, it would make a lot more sense for Sora, Riku and Kairi to share the Paopu together in friendship. It would also have fitted better thematically when we are shown several other trios; Aqua, Ventus, and Terra, have their wayfinders and get a solid amount of time renewed to show their bond. Axel, Roxas, and Xion, where Axel's reaction to seeing them again, and Xion's near immediate defection says a lot.
Would it really have killed them to have Sora, Riku, and Kairi fight an enemy together, and affirm a bond that is supposed to be there, but is never really shown?
I'm sure that somewhere there are people shrieking that they just don't understand why people think Sora and Riku are in love. But when they have many many times more screen time together than Sora and Kairi, and many many more affectionate moments, and examples of their trust in each other. It's made pretty clear that they would die for each other. It would have been nice to see Kairi given a fraction of that development. Show me Kairi training with Axel! Show me more flashbacks to time spent on the Destiny Islands between games! Show me Sora and Kairi and Riku before the final battle, together, having a hug and a team meeting!
Please make Kairi a character!
The glaring musical elephant in the room, or, why some worlds just didn't work
There are 7 Disney worlds in Kingdom Hearts 3. 2 of them, The Caribbean and Olympus, we’ve visited before, albeit in a much more limited capacity. The rest are all new, and for the most part, pretty fun to play through.
Two of them however, with one standing out as particularly bad, are less fun.
Anyone who’s played KH3 can probably guess which ones. Yep, Corona (Tangled) and Arendelle (Frozen). In a game full of particularly long worlds, these two stand out as particularly gratuitous.
What’s the big difference then? While every other world follows a new plot, or is building on past appearances in the Kingdom Hearts franchise, Corona and Arendelle seem determined to stick closely to the plot of the original movie. And stick Sora in there. This is especially obvious in Arendelle where the ‘Let it Go’ scene from the movie is created almost scene for scene, including the music.
It feels very much like an executive as Disney insisted that Frozen was so popular that they absolutely had to include it all, without realising how long games take to make and that Kingdom Hearts does not necessarily have the same audience as Frozen.
On top of the poor level design, which is incredibly repetitive (I have to climb this mountain 3 times? Seriously?!), and at times outright annoying (hunting down Olaf parts), it’s insistence on sticking to the plot of the movie weakens the game.
The idea of Sora, a character in the vein of Final Fantasy, visiting worlds populated by Disney characters is inherently pretty ludicrous. But somehow it worked, and a lot of that was down to Sora being given time to interact with the characters, and changing the plot enough to make it feel like Sora belongs there. That he matters! In Arendelle and Corona, he feels like an awkward hanger on, who doesn’t really have any place there. While Arendelle is worse, Corona is not guilt free here.
If Sora wasn’t there, the plot would advance in exactly the same way as it does in the movie. He barely gets time to interact meaningfully with the world characters. It makes everything feel like a shallow side quest. In the case of Arendelle, this also did Sora no favours in terms of characterisation. First, he badgers Elsa for her backstory at her most vulnerable moment, and then insists that she would never fall to darkness, despite having known her for all of one conversation, and a short one at that. I kept expecting Elsa to turn around and say that she didn’t know him at all. It was a little uncomfortable to watch, in that squirming second-hand embarrassment way.
The other new worlds worked well by because they started off with completely new stories. Sora gets to introduce himself to the characters and be fully engaged in their world and their plot, and it feels like the stakes are more real because of it. Sora matters in these worlds. I loved his interactions with Big Hero 6 for example, and the San Fransokyo world built nicely on the end of the movie and on established Kingdom Hearts lore.
I don’t know how much was executive meddling, but it definitely felt that way. It would have been really nice to see a world based on Moana or the Hawaii from Lilo and Stitch, somewhere Sora could express his feelings about the Destiny Islands. Or maybe a return visit to Radiant Garden! That was a world which I sorely missed, considering how important it was during the first two games and Birth By Sleep.
I just feel like there were other worlds which could have added a lot more to the story than Corona and Arendelle.
Which brings me onto my next point…
The plot is backloaded more than an Olympic figure skating routine
This has been the way of things in Kingdom Hearts, and maybe it’s just been too long since I last played KH1 or KH2, but it feels like this is particularly the case in Kingdom Hearts 3.
Including the Prologue (and did anyone else scream in horror and fear when Kingdom Hearts 2.9 was displayed on screen?), there are 6 main worlds, and a shorter jaunt in Twilight Town, and the obligatory visit to the 100 Acre Woods. Travel through these worlds takes at least 2/3 if not 3/4 of the game run time.
They are very plot light. Sora is trying to gain the Power of Waking, the ability to wake sleeping hearts, introduced in Dream Drop Distance. This involves the usual jaunt through various Disney worlds. Occasionally the members of the Real Organisation XIII turn up, either looking for ‘boxes’ or, as far as I can tell, fucking around. I’m not actually 100% clear on what was going on, despite having played the game. This is pretty much par for the course with Kingdom Hearts though so I’m not too bothered.
After you complete the final world though, suddenly you are bombarded with the culmination of roughly 12 games worth of plot.
It makes the last few hours of the game very very crowded. More characters are brought in for the first time in KH3! There are evil monologues! Heartless fall, everyone dies! It’s a hell of a lot to take in and in my opinion, does mean that there are some moments that are skipped or that don’t get enough time devoted to them.
I feel like it would have been possible to ease this by spreading out some of the events.My immediate thought is that the fight with Dark!Aqua could have been moved to the mid-point of the game. Have her be rescued then, and need some time to recover, and put in some of the stuff about the true stakes here (and give me a montage of Kairi and Axel training!). Give Sora an even more solid reason to travel to the next set of worlds. Ideally, Aqua would be a companion in a couple of the worlds, giving Sora a chance to make friends, and Aqua a chance to recover her strength. I get that this is probably asking for a lot from a game development standpoint, but from a narrative standpoint, it works better.
Then, with maybe one or two worlds to go, have them recover Ventus. Give Sora a moment to get to know this boy who has been surviving in his heart for the last decade. Make the last couple of worlds Sora making his preparations for the final battle. Make those meetings more poignant.
And then when the last chunk of the game comes, you have time to spread it out a little more. Possibly even time for a bit more interaction between Kairi, Sora, and Riku now they’re finally together again. It would also hopefully make the final section feel a little less crowded.
Pick your character. Pick… pick fewer characters than that. put some characters back. that’s too many
Kingdom Hearts has an insanely large cast. With this many games, that’s sort of inevitable, especially when one of your main antagonists is a group with 13 members.
This is not broadly speaking a problem. I love them. Some, like Luxord, were actually served pretty well despite having only a minor part on Kingdom Hearts 2. Others get pretty sweet cameos and sure you need to have played at least 5 other games to get them, but we sort of expected that.
Others… did not fare so well.
Notable, is the complete absence of Final Fantasy characters, and while I understand not including them, it would have been nice to see how they’re faring in the glimpses we get of Radiant Garden.
When it comes to characters who do make an appearance though, there are a few who spring to mind. Aeleus (Lexaeus) and Dilan (Xaldin) show up but don’t actually get dialogue. Marluxia gets a couple of short cut scenes and then cryptic dialogue during his final battle. Demyx shows up and then gets bullied by Vexen into defecting but Demyx is kind of a flake so I don’t mind this.
Vexen though…
Vexen throughout the games has been portrayed as obsessed with his research, with no regard to ethics or morality. This continues into the first part of Kingdom Hearts 3. And then suddenly… he decides that he wants to atone and find redemption and be a good guy and… I’m not actually sure why. It is a development that to me came very out of the blue.
His defection is a deus ex machina allowing Ienzo and the others to get hold of the research they need to create a replica to bring Roxas back. And that’s what it feels like; they needed a way for this to happen, and didn’t really give much thought to how that worked for the character.
It wouldn’t have taken much for me to buy into it. Give me a few moments of Vexen looking troubled at what he’s been asked to do by Xehanort. Show him watching over Twilight Town pensively. Maybe even a brief run-in with Ansem the Wise! Show me that Vexen’s brief return to being a Somebody had affected him, and I would have been sold on it!
Instead his defection feels like it comes out of nowhere and it feels very contrived. Of course you can go and play through a bunch of optional battles after you’ve beaten the game to get secret reports which do elaborate a little on this but… that means that for a large percentage of people playing, who don’t want to do this, Vexen’s defection is totally random
One thing that could have been cut in order to make space for some of this is…
The Maleficent and Pete Party Hour
Maleficent is a great villain in Kingdom Hearts 1, but even then, she isn’t the true villain, being manipulated by someone with deeper, darker plans. She’s a secondary antagonist in Kingdom Hearts 2, before apparently having a change of heart when a the greater threat of the Nobodies is revealed.
In Kingdom Hearts 3? She has no effect on the storyline whatsoever. All she does is show up a couple of times, looking for a box, and be condescending to Sora. That’s it.
Sure, we need to know about the box for future game plot purposes, but we already have Luxord searching for it. Another mention or two from the other Organisation members would have served the same purpose in a much shorter space of time.
Also, when we have this huge metaplot going on, Maleficent just doesn’t seem to be in the same league as someone like Xehanort who can warp the fabric of reality and travel through time. Sure, she can turn into a dragon, but we know the movie, where she gets defeated by a normal human guy with a sword.
I’m not saying she shouldn’t be brought back later on, just that Maleficent and Pete are completely superfluous in Kingdom hearts 3. and take time away from characters who would have served the plot better.
Gummi ships have the manoeuvrability of bricks
I mostly ignored the Gummi ships in KH1. I actually quite enjoyed them in KH2.
In KH3… well, the world map is pretty. I will grant it that. It should be an absolute blast to travel around. Unfortunately, the gummi ship means that it is, in fact, the opposite of that.
Steering the gummi ship is like trying to drive a mega cruise ship through the streets of New York. It’s horrendous. The actual fighting part is fine. Nothing special, but fine. The world map though?
I nearly rage quit.
In fairness, it does get better when you start getting better Gummi ships and items to tweak the manoeuvrability. I’ve reached a point with it now when it’s actually verging on fun. Unfortunately, to get to this point… you have to play through sections of the world map.
It’s a poorly designed spot in an otherwise beautifully designed game. Which brings onto my final negative point.
Unskippable boss battles, timed events, and mini games (oh my!)
This is a problem with more than Kingdom Hearts. It’s a problem with a lot of video games.
For the love of god, institute a way to skip boss battles and timed events if you lose a certain number of times.
I mean, I hear the screams of ‘git gud’ from a thousand gamer boys, ready to savage me for daring to say this but… look, I’m in my 30s. I do not have time to sit down and replay the same part of a game over and over again. My patience may well snap before I finish. The barrel section of Olympus Coliseum in KH1? I tried that so many times and actually gave up on Kingdom Hearts 1 for a couple of years because of it. i only went back because a friend did that part for me.
Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix? I still haven’t defeated Roxas. I am level 92. And because of that, I can’t get any further in the game, including the secret extra parts of Hollow Bastion that I was so stoked to see. I’m probably never going to touch that game again.
And there have been others. The timed car race in Final Fantasy XV? Pissed me off enough I nearly stopped playing.
And I’m relatively decent at video games and am able-bodied. Some people aren’t! Some people have trouble with pressing buttons in quick succession!
I’m not saying ‘remove all boss fights and anything difficult’. If you like being challenged in video games, and having to work really hard to overcome those battles, then good for you! I wish you many brutal boss fights that challenge you in exactly the way you enjoy.
But for me, I would like skipping them to be an option.
Don't get me wrong, I really loved KH3 and had a great time playing it, but my criticisms tend to spark more discussion and thinky thoughts, while the good things tend to involve more pure 'SQUEE THIS IS AWESOME' which makes for shorter posts.
Also I know sometimes if you're really loving something, you're not in the mood to read criticism at that time, even if you might agree with it. Hence... 2 parts.
Needless to say, there are a lot of spoilers below for Kingdom Hearts 3!
The Problem of Kairi
The biggest and most glaring issue with the game and the franchise as a whole, is that no-one seems to know what to do with Kairi. In fact, it's pretty obvious that the people making the game are not really interested in her.
In Kingdom Hearts 1, she was the damsel in distress, the Princess of Heart, saving whom is the goal for both Sora and Riku. She's also, while possibly not the source, the excuse for the conflict between Sora and Riku. She vanishes at the start of the game and is only seen again close to the end.
In Kingdom Hearts 2, she's been benched, her memories of Sora erased, until she eventually ends up a prisoner of Organisation XIII. While she does escape with Axel's help, and discovers she has a Keyblade, she is not present for any of the fights that Sora and Riku take part in and has no real impact on the story.
With Dream Drop Distance, there was a glimmer of hope! She was training to be a Keyblade Wielder with Lea. Surely this boded well for Kingdom Hearts 3, with the clash against darkness.
Sadly, it was not to be. Despite her status as one of the Seven Pure Lights, and her training with the Keyblade, she doesn't actually show up a whole lot. And when we finally think that she's going to be involved in the combat, and take her place as a Keyblade wielder... she is unceremoniously kidnapped and 'killed' to fuel the actions of Sora and Riku. Again.
Kingdom Hearts is not overrun with original female characters (and I'm fairly sure that KH3 does not pass the Bechdel test) but none of them are worse served. There's Aqua, who is awesome, and Namine, and Xion. Larxene is a lot of fun as a villain in this game. But Kairi is set up to be the female lead of the series, and yet she has significantly impact on the story than any of the others. Aqua is a protagonist in Birth By Sleep, important enough to get her own side-game in Fragmentary Passage. Xion is one of the core characters in 365/2 Days. Namine, Kairi's Nobody, plays a large part in both Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts 2. Larxene is just fun in Chain of Memories and in KH3, with her plotting and manipulation.
Even Olette, a side character from Twilight Town, has more effect on the plot due to her own agency when she helps to rescue Ansem the Wise from Xemnas.
It's disappointing. I want to like Kairi. The few moments we have with her, when she's talking with Axel, are great. But she exists purely to further Sora's story.
It actually proves to be a bit of detriment to that too. Part of the plot involves Sora and Kairi sharing a Paopu. Unfortunately, Kairi is such a non-entity, and has had so little screen time, that it's hard to invest in their relationship. Sora last and Kairi last saw each other for any length of time two or three years ago before KH1, when they were 14. They've had so little screen time together that the relationship, while inevitable because 'designated love interest', feels... shallow. In the context of what we've seen, it would make a lot more sense for Sora, Riku and Kairi to share the Paopu together in friendship. It would also have fitted better thematically when we are shown several other trios; Aqua, Ventus, and Terra, have their wayfinders and get a solid amount of time renewed to show their bond. Axel, Roxas, and Xion, where Axel's reaction to seeing them again, and Xion's near immediate defection says a lot.
Would it really have killed them to have Sora, Riku, and Kairi fight an enemy together, and affirm a bond that is supposed to be there, but is never really shown?
I'm sure that somewhere there are people shrieking that they just don't understand why people think Sora and Riku are in love. But when they have many many times more screen time together than Sora and Kairi, and many many more affectionate moments, and examples of their trust in each other. It's made pretty clear that they would die for each other. It would have been nice to see Kairi given a fraction of that development. Show me Kairi training with Axel! Show me more flashbacks to time spent on the Destiny Islands between games! Show me Sora and Kairi and Riku before the final battle, together, having a hug and a team meeting!
Please make Kairi a character!
The glaring musical elephant in the room, or, why some worlds just didn't work
There are 7 Disney worlds in Kingdom Hearts 3. 2 of them, The Caribbean and Olympus, we’ve visited before, albeit in a much more limited capacity. The rest are all new, and for the most part, pretty fun to play through.
Two of them however, with one standing out as particularly bad, are less fun.
Anyone who’s played KH3 can probably guess which ones. Yep, Corona (Tangled) and Arendelle (Frozen). In a game full of particularly long worlds, these two stand out as particularly gratuitous.
What’s the big difference then? While every other world follows a new plot, or is building on past appearances in the Kingdom Hearts franchise, Corona and Arendelle seem determined to stick closely to the plot of the original movie. And stick Sora in there. This is especially obvious in Arendelle where the ‘Let it Go’ scene from the movie is created almost scene for scene, including the music.
It feels very much like an executive as Disney insisted that Frozen was so popular that they absolutely had to include it all, without realising how long games take to make and that Kingdom Hearts does not necessarily have the same audience as Frozen.
On top of the poor level design, which is incredibly repetitive (I have to climb this mountain 3 times? Seriously?!), and at times outright annoying (hunting down Olaf parts), it’s insistence on sticking to the plot of the movie weakens the game.
The idea of Sora, a character in the vein of Final Fantasy, visiting worlds populated by Disney characters is inherently pretty ludicrous. But somehow it worked, and a lot of that was down to Sora being given time to interact with the characters, and changing the plot enough to make it feel like Sora belongs there. That he matters! In Arendelle and Corona, he feels like an awkward hanger on, who doesn’t really have any place there. While Arendelle is worse, Corona is not guilt free here.
If Sora wasn’t there, the plot would advance in exactly the same way as it does in the movie. He barely gets time to interact meaningfully with the world characters. It makes everything feel like a shallow side quest. In the case of Arendelle, this also did Sora no favours in terms of characterisation. First, he badgers Elsa for her backstory at her most vulnerable moment, and then insists that she would never fall to darkness, despite having known her for all of one conversation, and a short one at that. I kept expecting Elsa to turn around and say that she didn’t know him at all. It was a little uncomfortable to watch, in that squirming second-hand embarrassment way.
The other new worlds worked well by because they started off with completely new stories. Sora gets to introduce himself to the characters and be fully engaged in their world and their plot, and it feels like the stakes are more real because of it. Sora matters in these worlds. I loved his interactions with Big Hero 6 for example, and the San Fransokyo world built nicely on the end of the movie and on established Kingdom Hearts lore.
I don’t know how much was executive meddling, but it definitely felt that way. It would have been really nice to see a world based on Moana or the Hawaii from Lilo and Stitch, somewhere Sora could express his feelings about the Destiny Islands. Or maybe a return visit to Radiant Garden! That was a world which I sorely missed, considering how important it was during the first two games and Birth By Sleep.
I just feel like there were other worlds which could have added a lot more to the story than Corona and Arendelle.
Which brings me onto my next point…
The plot is backloaded more than an Olympic figure skating routine
This has been the way of things in Kingdom Hearts, and maybe it’s just been too long since I last played KH1 or KH2, but it feels like this is particularly the case in Kingdom Hearts 3.
Including the Prologue (and did anyone else scream in horror and fear when Kingdom Hearts 2.9 was displayed on screen?), there are 6 main worlds, and a shorter jaunt in Twilight Town, and the obligatory visit to the 100 Acre Woods. Travel through these worlds takes at least 2/3 if not 3/4 of the game run time.
They are very plot light. Sora is trying to gain the Power of Waking, the ability to wake sleeping hearts, introduced in Dream Drop Distance. This involves the usual jaunt through various Disney worlds. Occasionally the members of the Real Organisation XIII turn up, either looking for ‘boxes’ or, as far as I can tell, fucking around. I’m not actually 100% clear on what was going on, despite having played the game. This is pretty much par for the course with Kingdom Hearts though so I’m not too bothered.
After you complete the final world though, suddenly you are bombarded with the culmination of roughly 12 games worth of plot.
It makes the last few hours of the game very very crowded. More characters are brought in for the first time in KH3! There are evil monologues! Heartless fall, everyone dies! It’s a hell of a lot to take in and in my opinion, does mean that there are some moments that are skipped or that don’t get enough time devoted to them.
I feel like it would have been possible to ease this by spreading out some of the events.My immediate thought is that the fight with Dark!Aqua could have been moved to the mid-point of the game. Have her be rescued then, and need some time to recover, and put in some of the stuff about the true stakes here (and give me a montage of Kairi and Axel training!). Give Sora an even more solid reason to travel to the next set of worlds. Ideally, Aqua would be a companion in a couple of the worlds, giving Sora a chance to make friends, and Aqua a chance to recover her strength. I get that this is probably asking for a lot from a game development standpoint, but from a narrative standpoint, it works better.
Then, with maybe one or two worlds to go, have them recover Ventus. Give Sora a moment to get to know this boy who has been surviving in his heart for the last decade. Make the last couple of worlds Sora making his preparations for the final battle. Make those meetings more poignant.
And then when the last chunk of the game comes, you have time to spread it out a little more. Possibly even time for a bit more interaction between Kairi, Sora, and Riku now they’re finally together again. It would also hopefully make the final section feel a little less crowded.
Pick your character. Pick… pick fewer characters than that. put some characters back. that’s too many
Kingdom Hearts has an insanely large cast. With this many games, that’s sort of inevitable, especially when one of your main antagonists is a group with 13 members.
This is not broadly speaking a problem. I love them. Some, like Luxord, were actually served pretty well despite having only a minor part on Kingdom Hearts 2. Others get pretty sweet cameos and sure you need to have played at least 5 other games to get them, but we sort of expected that.
Others… did not fare so well.
Notable, is the complete absence of Final Fantasy characters, and while I understand not including them, it would have been nice to see how they’re faring in the glimpses we get of Radiant Garden.
When it comes to characters who do make an appearance though, there are a few who spring to mind. Aeleus (Lexaeus) and Dilan (Xaldin) show up but don’t actually get dialogue. Marluxia gets a couple of short cut scenes and then cryptic dialogue during his final battle. Demyx shows up and then gets bullied by Vexen into defecting but Demyx is kind of a flake so I don’t mind this.
Vexen though…
Vexen throughout the games has been portrayed as obsessed with his research, with no regard to ethics or morality. This continues into the first part of Kingdom Hearts 3. And then suddenly… he decides that he wants to atone and find redemption and be a good guy and… I’m not actually sure why. It is a development that to me came very out of the blue.
His defection is a deus ex machina allowing Ienzo and the others to get hold of the research they need to create a replica to bring Roxas back. And that’s what it feels like; they needed a way for this to happen, and didn’t really give much thought to how that worked for the character.
It wouldn’t have taken much for me to buy into it. Give me a few moments of Vexen looking troubled at what he’s been asked to do by Xehanort. Show him watching over Twilight Town pensively. Maybe even a brief run-in with Ansem the Wise! Show me that Vexen’s brief return to being a Somebody had affected him, and I would have been sold on it!
Instead his defection feels like it comes out of nowhere and it feels very contrived. Of course you can go and play through a bunch of optional battles after you’ve beaten the game to get secret reports which do elaborate a little on this but… that means that for a large percentage of people playing, who don’t want to do this, Vexen’s defection is totally random
One thing that could have been cut in order to make space for some of this is…
The Maleficent and Pete Party Hour
Maleficent is a great villain in Kingdom Hearts 1, but even then, she isn’t the true villain, being manipulated by someone with deeper, darker plans. She’s a secondary antagonist in Kingdom Hearts 2, before apparently having a change of heart when a the greater threat of the Nobodies is revealed.
In Kingdom Hearts 3? She has no effect on the storyline whatsoever. All she does is show up a couple of times, looking for a box, and be condescending to Sora. That’s it.
Sure, we need to know about the box for future game plot purposes, but we already have Luxord searching for it. Another mention or two from the other Organisation members would have served the same purpose in a much shorter space of time.
Also, when we have this huge metaplot going on, Maleficent just doesn’t seem to be in the same league as someone like Xehanort who can warp the fabric of reality and travel through time. Sure, she can turn into a dragon, but we know the movie, where she gets defeated by a normal human guy with a sword.
I’m not saying she shouldn’t be brought back later on, just that Maleficent and Pete are completely superfluous in Kingdom hearts 3. and take time away from characters who would have served the plot better.
Gummi ships have the manoeuvrability of bricks
I mostly ignored the Gummi ships in KH1. I actually quite enjoyed them in KH2.
In KH3… well, the world map is pretty. I will grant it that. It should be an absolute blast to travel around. Unfortunately, the gummi ship means that it is, in fact, the opposite of that.
Steering the gummi ship is like trying to drive a mega cruise ship through the streets of New York. It’s horrendous. The actual fighting part is fine. Nothing special, but fine. The world map though?
I nearly rage quit.
In fairness, it does get better when you start getting better Gummi ships and items to tweak the manoeuvrability. I’ve reached a point with it now when it’s actually verging on fun. Unfortunately, to get to this point… you have to play through sections of the world map.
It’s a poorly designed spot in an otherwise beautifully designed game. Which brings onto my final negative point.
Unskippable boss battles, timed events, and mini games (oh my!)
This is a problem with more than Kingdom Hearts. It’s a problem with a lot of video games.
For the love of god, institute a way to skip boss battles and timed events if you lose a certain number of times.
I mean, I hear the screams of ‘git gud’ from a thousand gamer boys, ready to savage me for daring to say this but… look, I’m in my 30s. I do not have time to sit down and replay the same part of a game over and over again. My patience may well snap before I finish. The barrel section of Olympus Coliseum in KH1? I tried that so many times and actually gave up on Kingdom Hearts 1 for a couple of years because of it. i only went back because a friend did that part for me.
Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix? I still haven’t defeated Roxas. I am level 92. And because of that, I can’t get any further in the game, including the secret extra parts of Hollow Bastion that I was so stoked to see. I’m probably never going to touch that game again.
And there have been others. The timed car race in Final Fantasy XV? Pissed me off enough I nearly stopped playing.
And I’m relatively decent at video games and am able-bodied. Some people aren’t! Some people have trouble with pressing buttons in quick succession!
I’m not saying ‘remove all boss fights and anything difficult’. If you like being challenged in video games, and having to work really hard to overcome those battles, then good for you! I wish you many brutal boss fights that challenge you in exactly the way you enjoy.
But for me, I would like skipping them to be an option.
no subject
Date: 2019-03-08 01:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-08 01:20 am (UTC)I really loved the game overall! I've been waiting for it for so long and I'm so excited to be able to play it. And I absolutely cried at parts so it's well worth playing. I'm still working on the other half of the post so it isn't just fannish shrieking.
I still have basically no idea what's going on, and I'm okay with that!