In recent months, I’ve been replaying every Kingdom Hearts game available to me on the PS4.  And eventually, I returned to the controversial third numbered entry in the series after having not played it since its release 7 years ago.  Like many others, I was not a fan of this game upon its release, so I was quite curious to see how I would feel now that my initial disappointment had cooled and I could more honestly compare the game to previous entries.  Spoilers for KH3 will follow. (Also, my original review is here.)

My playthrough began with a good deal of excitement.  Instead of having a slow opening like we got in KH1 and KH2, the third game gets right into the action, with Sora, Donald, and Goofy heading to a greatly expanded Olympus.  (Minus the coliseum, weirdly enough…)  It was good to be back, visiting with Hercules again, exploring the town that we barely saw in BBS, and even heading to the realm of the gods!  KH3 is fun, there’s no denying that.  But as I worked my way through the first world, I had already vowed to avoid all those attraction commands that have Sora and the gang riding on Disney rides.  This game is, most assuredly, the flashiest in the series.  But I can’t help but feel it’s a bit too flashy, and I had no intention of using moves, as visually interesting as they were, where I would be invisible for a prolonged period of time.  (During my most recent playthrough of KH2, I often avoided the reaction commands that had me teaming up with my allies because of how overpowered they could feel.)

Gameplay-wise, I still really enjoy visiting the Toy Box and exploring a huge toy store with Woody and Buzz.  But by Kingdom of Corona, I already found myself encountering the same issues as last time.  A handful of the worlds (in addition to this one, Arendelle and the Caribbean suffer from this) subject us to way too many scenes from the movies upon which they are based, but with Sora and co there.  And many worlds (Kingdom of Corona, Arendelle, and Monstropolis) just overstay their welcome.  They are so long.  They just drag and drag, and while the sporadic character interactions are charming (I especially liked Mike, Sulley, and Boo in Monstropolis), I, once again, found myself rushing through worlds just to move on to something different.  I would have really preferred more, smaller worlds than a handful of long ones.  Or they should have had us finish the world in two separate visits like KH2 did.

I’m gonna get ahead of myself for a moment here and say, KH3 is a pretty fun game.  Yes, it’s too flashy for its own good, making the combat too easy and just a bit shallow.  But it sure is an entertaining spectacle.  It’s also neat how every Keyblade has its own unique powers.  (Ever After was my favorite, with Shooting Star a close second.)  The open gummi ship sections were cool, too, even if I would have liked a greater variety of scenery.  With that said…

My biggest problem with this game, however, has remained unchanged.  I am still not a fan of the story.  I don’t feel like the Disney worlds are as integrated into the main plot as they could have been.  And there are so many cutscenes that could have been cut or greatly shortened.  Between many worlds, we have Sora sitting slouched in the gummi ship, looking bored and clueless as to where to go next.  (The second time it happened, I thought there was a mistake, and they were replaying a scene I had already watched before.)  And then we got long scenes of him talking to people on the phone.  Usually with Ienzo (the human version of former Nobody, Zexion).  And I’m sorry, but Ienzo is so boring.  Honestly, who ever thought making the player watch phone calls would ever be a good idea?

I also hated the way Sora was treated in this game.  Despite being the major character responsible for saving the day time and time again, Sora is frequently implied to be a reckless idiot by most people around him.  Donald is the worst culprit, but I was surprised to even see Goofy tease Sora and comment on his low intelligence.  To make matters even worse, we then find out that Yen Sid had commented on Sora’s “half-baked” plans, as well, leading to everyone in the room laughing at him while Sora just stands there, looking none too pleased about it.  People have said that this is just harmless teasing, but Sora seems genuinely hurt by it, and many characters really do seem to have a low opinion of him.  It’s just so jarring when no one really treated him this way in past games.  (And my memory is certainly not fuzzy because I just played the previous games immediately prior to this one.)  I feel like Jack Sparrow probably treated Sora with the most respect!  Let’s just kick Donald off the team entirely and replace him with Jack for every world from now on, ‘kay?

But the worst thing of all was that this game failed to deliver on its most important promise.  KH3 was supposed to provide closure to so many loose plotlines from previous games.  It’s already an issue that fans are expected to play a good number of games before this one, including many handheld games sprinkled across multiple devices and mobile games.  But ignoring that, KH3 does a poor job of giving us a satisfying conclusion to so many important plot threads.  We spent so much time rewatching large portions of Disney movies and running through endless meadows with Rapunzel and Flynn or climbing the same dang snowy mountain in Arendelle, and yet the main story moments we all bought the game for were crammed into the end and hardly given time to shine!

Aqua finally gets out of the Realm of Darkness after ten years wandering alone.  Does she have any time to process this?  No.  Because we’re now off to wake up Ven.  But we have no time to watch these two friends reconnect after a decade, either.  Good morning, Ven, it’s time to run full speed towards the Keyblade Graveyard now.  Everyone has a happy ending.  But it feels hollow and empty.  Characters with tragic ends return, and then we’re off to the next plot point.  Ven and Roxas barely even acknowledge each other, despite sharing the same face.  Everything is rushed, with no time to really process or appreciate what’s going on.  Oh, and when I say everyone has a happy ending, I mean it.

Because even the baddies have happy endings!  When members of Organization XIII are defeated, they are hardly seen as villains, but as victims who can now have another chance at life.  Sora smiles and offers the comforting reassurance that such and such character can now be recompleted (yes, Nobodies can now regain their humanity by being defeated, making becoming a Nobody more of a minor inconvenience than anything).  And Xehanort, hoo boy, don’t even get me started on Xehanort.

Okay, I’m gonna get started on Xehanort.  This man has done so much evil.  He stole Terra’s body for over a decade.  He split Ven’s heart in half and then forced Ven to fight his dark side against his will.  He is responsible for Aqua spending ten years in the Realm of Darkness.  This man has ruined lives and seeks to end the world as we know it.  And you know what, he dies in his friend’s arms and, presumably, goes to heaven.

KH3 made so many poor story choices.  By giving everyone a happy ending, good guys and baddies included, so many good moments are undermined, including those from past entries.  Roxas and Namine and Xion had tragic ends.  But any sadness I might feel for them while playing the games where they, respectively, first made an appearance, is now gone because I know it’s all going to turn out hunky-dorey in the end.  Roxas’ story was probably my favorite.  I really felt for him at the start of KH2, as he starts to understand who he really is.  How he doesn’t really exist and must soon return to Sora, simultaneously becoming whole again while losing his independence.  Now, that tragedy is gone.

And I don’t want my villains redeemed, either.  I actually really like Organization XIII.  The original one, anyway.  But that doesn’t mean I wanted these characters redeemed.  I liked them being villains.  And I could still feel sympathy for the fact that they lacked hearts while disapproving of their nefarious actions.  I didn’t need a happy end for horrible people like Larxene.  And I sure as heck didn’t want Xehanort’s life to end peacefully, with a smile on his face and his best friend’s arm around him.  He causes so much pain and suffering, and in the end, he faces no consequences.  And he faces minimal anger from those he had wronged.  It’s not satisfying.  It’s hollow and empty.

Frankly, there are so many new plot developments from the series as a whole that I could rant about.  Like Nobodies supposedly being able to regrow hearts.  And certain characters apparently being ancient Keyblade wielders from the past.  (Sometimes, I find a character more interesting if they’re an ordinary person that ended up in extraordinary circumstances.)  But that could fill pages, and I, frankly, don’t really feel like yakking about it all day.

Do you want to know why so many people like KH2 so much, but felt let down by KH3?  KH2 gave fans what they wanted.  After the first game, we just wanted more adventures with Sora, Donald, and Goofy through Disney worlds, with enough expansion on the lore to keep things interesting.  And that’s what we got.  More Disney worlds.  And Nobodies were added.  It was pretty simple.  And it was fun.  And it was satisfying.  KH3 had much bigger shoes to fill.  It had so many plot threads to tie up in an emotionally satisfying way.  And it didn’t succeed.  It’s like how there is a very different expectation to be met when eating a $1 burger from a fast food chain vs a $30 burger from a fancy restaurant.  Even if the $30 burger is technically better, if it only tastes like a $15 burger, and the cheap burger feels more worthy of $3, the cheap, albeit worse, burger is going to satisfy more than the more expensive one, even if it was technically of better quality.  Because one managed to exceed your expectations, while the other didn’t even meet them.

It’s a shame because, had the ending not been so rushed, and some moments been handled differently, KH3 could have been the best game in the series.  It NEEDED to be the best.  And it just wasn’t.  So even though there were some really great moments (the scene where Sora cries out in despair as all his friends are wiped out by the Heartless is gut-wrenching), the lows are so numerous that the good stuff is overshadowed.  This game did not give me, or many other fans, what we wanted.  And it failed to provide the same sense of magic and wonder that the first two numbered games gave me. KH3 is a good burger that should have been a great one, and I don’t think I’ll ever quite get over that.