Video Game Review - Kingdom Hearts III

Well its finally here!! After what has felt like an eternity, the third numbered title in the Kingdom Hearts series is finally here. So I have played all the other games though for some I have played the newer versions and for others I have played the original versions. And although some of them I never really completed fully, I have learnt enough and have watched several videos to better prepare myself for the long awaited third game which is also the last game in the "Dark Seeker" saga so I've been told. So as with anyone who tries to explain the story, I'm only going to focus on the story of this game so you are better off reading my other Kingdom Hearts reviews or go onto a dedicated wiki to find out about the rest of the story to prepare yourself for this long awaited game. Though this game also has some memory archives so finding out the rest of the story may not be as hard as you might think after all. So let's grab our keyblades and go fight the Heartless and the like:

There's a lot to unpack here so let's start with the story as always. Set directly after Dream Drop Distance, Sora (reprised by Haley Joel Osment) goes on a new quest to regain his powers accompanied by Donald Duck (reprised by Tony Anselmo) and Goofy (reprised by Bill Farmer) to best prepare himself for what is likely to be the final battle against Xehanort (voiced by Rutger Hauer) and his new Organisation XIII. Meanwhile, preperations are made to find those who have been lost to the darkness while also training those who want to fight with all their heart just as much as Sora. So the amount of worlds this time is smaller than before, but this is good in a way as the worlds in this game are a lot bigger, fully explorable, have something unique about them and have a lot more life in them than before. From a graphical perspective, the game feels more alive than before and comes close to the paintbrush style that most Disney films always stride to do. The party limit has gone so players can have not just the usual half pints, but also the resident Disney character or characters together in each world rather than just three at any given time which therefore makes combat more easier to take on and actually shows everyone giving it their all. Also on top of the combat mechanics from before, players can also use special but powerful moves that see characters combining their abilities, the keyblades using their unique powers and the use of powerful moves that bring in a Disneyland attraction. Summons are now called Links, but work the same as before with some enhancements here and there. Also the game brings in 21st Century technology as Sora gets himself a phone like device that he can take pictures with (particularly to find hidden Mickeys spread across the game) and also to play some minigames that take the form of those old LCD games but based on very old Mickey Mouse cartoons. All that plus the game starts in a Disney world this time which is a series first. And Pixar makes its Kingdom Hearts debut with worlds based on Toy Story and Monsters Inc. as well as an appearance from Remy from Ratatouille who puts Sora's culinary skills to the test.

Kingdom Hearts III is as close as we're going to get from having that dream Kingdom Hearts game. Its packed with everything fans like me could ever want to have from the series and manages to adapt Disney's more recent IPs and a handful of old ones really well. Bigger is better as I say and I hope we get more big worlds in future games. Plus the idea of unlocking the secret film by finding a certain amount of items is probably a better way of doing things compared to past games. However there are some problems I have with it such as the lingering lack of an auto save feature which is kind of needed for a game like this. It also lacks a critical mode of difficulty and as such, the game feels a bit too easy to play than before as I only ever got a game over once in my personal playthrough. The combat can also be repetitive and a lot of stuff can be thrown at your face when doing those powerful moves I mentioned. But other than all of that, its one of the best games in the series so far despite the lack of almost anything Final Fantasy in it and its also one of those games that can play really well on earlier models of the PS4 of which this review is based on which is pretty good considering the cost of later models. That's pretty much all I can say so yes it was worth the wait. I wish there was more in there, but I'm very happy with it so it gets a 9/10.

By the way in case anyone is wondering, this is it. No Final Mix version is planned, but we have been promised some DLC to cover anything the base game may have missed. But speaking of that, this is probably the only time where I will actually make an exception when it comes to releasing DLC to complete the game seeing as the secret ending was DLC that came out later on to avoid leaks which this game unfortunately faced weeks prior to its release. Anyway nuff said, go play the game!