A classic clash between light and darkness

Kingdom Hearts is a saga about the constant fight between light and darkness. The third numbered entry in the series, that finally got released after 10 years of waiting, Kingdom Hearts 3, represents that exact fight in itself.

The light in it comes from the Disney worlds, giving you either retellings or new stories about the movies that we love, making every interaction with established characters magical. It also comes from the dynamic fighting system. Every fight is a beautiful mess of flashes and color. Magic attacks, combos involving your trusted companions, Goofy and Donald, your Keyblade transformations, or the attractions being triggered and ensuring chaos and devastation.

Then there’s the darkness in the game, and sadly, there’s a bunch of it. In the series story, the darkness is embodied by monsters called Heartless, or Nobodies or god knows what other term they invented. The gameplay although it’s fun, it does feels dated, the storytelling pacing is terrible, and the need to put 5–10 minute cutscenes between fights it’s frustrating. Specially the last hours of the game. We all know KH has a complicated story that only hardcore fans completely get (do they tho?), and that’s not what I’m criticizing here, let’s ignore that for a minute. My real beef is with the delivery of it, the writing is full of cheesy and terrible line deliveries, followed by weird voice acting, although I think this one is limited to the original cast, because all the Disney characters are on point.

Then there’s the pacing. At the beginning I was really surprised by how they handled the story and introduced you to this world. Master Yen Sid tells you you lost your powers, and that you need “The Power of Awakening” for the final battle and that you must go to find Hercules, to get information on how to restore lost powers. They drop you into the Hercules world, nice and easy, show you the gameplay mechanics, etc. All good. Then enter Maleficent and Pete, and things start getting weird but you follow. By the actual beginning of KH3, people from Organization XIII starts popping up, and suddenly they are namedropping people left and right, brining time travel, data worlds and much more. It’s impossible to follow if you are not a die hard fan, and I can give them a pass on that.

But the actual Kingdom Hearts 3 story is given to you in small doses, the plot never moves forward in any of the different Disney worlds you visit. It’s not until the last 3 or so hours that things start picking up and the conflict starts to build up. And all this comes in the form of: a button smashing fight -> 5 mins of cutscenes -> 5 mins of traversal -> 5 mins of cutscenes and repeat. To the point that all the actual gameplay parts of it becomes a chore, I think I’d much rather have a movie of it and just be done with the story, than having to play through it, because at the end, the classic tale about light and darkness, good vs evil, is still interesting, no matter how tried it is.

That’s not to say this game is bad, this game has a bunch of heart, soul and dedication put into it, and you notice it, but it also feels like a game from another time, as most JRPGS do in the past years.

Kingdom Hearts 3 is a game full of bad decisions, sweetened by a bunch of Disney/Pixar worlds that bring joy through every level, specially the Pixar ones that give you original stories, as thin as they are, compared to the classic Disney movie story retelling. But the worlds are fun, the movie characters in the game feel, talk and act like the movie characters, it’s the core of the charm KH has. Except for the Pirates of the Caribbean world. Apart of going through the third movie story, which is the weakest in the franchise, it gives some chores that only feel like padding. The only cool thing in this world is seeing a “realistic” Donald and Goofy.

At the end of the game I just wanted it to end, it became too much. But also can’t ignore the fact that gaming for me was hard through January. Nothing clicked. I played games for the sake of playing them, not really enjoying them. And this game is one that I truly enjoyed. Through the initial 15 hours, I just wanted to devour it, and it put a smile on my face constantly, and I was able to ignore the quirks it had.

I think this is a game you have to accept and forgive it’s faults to really enjoy, but in a generation were games keep reinventing combat, exploration, storytelling and graphics, a world where games like God of War, Spider-Man, Breath of The Wild and Red Dead Redemption 2 exist, I think we are doing a disservice to SquareEnix and any Japanese developer to not hold them to the same standards we hold other games. I want to see them step up their game, because they have talent, they just need to leave the old ways behind. They need to let their hearts be the guiding key…

Let me know what you thought about Kingdom Hearts!