Clare Killman

Kingdom Hearts 3 was an exercise in pure beauty, convoluted plot points, and canned jokes. It’s a much less mature game than KH2, with Sora, Donald, Riku, Kairi, and Goofy acting as though they’re younger/less experienced than they are at the “heroes of the universe” gambit. While the graphics and worlds are beautiful, the nearly exclusive focus on Pixar/live action related films is off-putting at best and jarring at worst. The developers were very (and I mean very) lazy. The writing is sub-standard. The plot points are shoehorned together. None of the worlds you grew up loving and caring about are available to re-explore. There’s no real deepening of the KH related feel but, rather, a superficial glossing over of the intermediate-between-title releases. There are no Final Fantasy characters present at all. The superficiality is extended further by endless cutscenes with little relevance to the story, the cringe inducing (and cut rate graphics version) of “Let It Go”, and many other ~pretty but irrelevant moments. There’s so much less mystery and nuance associated with everything about the KH Universe. There’s no “using the key blade to lock the doors to different worlds” to save them. While combat is more fluid, from a sensory experience it’s an absolute eye and ear sore. I completed the entire game at around 30-35 hours and was more or less bored for most of the play through. I was very dissatisfied with KH3 and felt like a part of my childhood was ruined.