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violethowler · 5 years

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My thoughts on Kingdom Hearts III

My initial reaction to the ending of Kingdom Hearts III was equal parts confusion, devastation, and just being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of how much time was spent on the final battle. I had a lot of conflicting opinions about how some things were handled, but unlike when that happened with the final season of Voltron, I feel a lot better about everything after a good night's sleep, because I was up late at night finishing the game. I'll get into the spoilers under the cut.

So, for starters, let me put my reactions on a scale of negative to positive:

Major disappointments that should absolutely be done better in the next saga:

After Kairi was hyped up for so long that she'd have a more important part to play in the story, her role in the final battle was a letdown. I can swallow her not being as amazing a fighter as the others because she's never been in combat before and she's been effectively thrown into the deep end on her first day, but I at least expected her to resist when Xemas grabbed her, instead of passively standing there like a helpless damsel in distress. The only in-universe explanation would be if after stress and panic of the previous fights, she froze up when Xemnas made a more for her. But after seven years of being built up as a Keyblade Wielder, and her relationship with Sora, she could have done so much more. I sincerely hope that Testuya Nomura learns from this and lets her shine in the next saga.

With trailers and interviews hyping up how big the worlds were this time around, having Twilight Town and 100 Acre wood be just one small area each was seriously disappointing. I was really looking forward to seeing more of the 100 Acre Wood. They could have fleshed out the whole "Sora disappearing from the cover mystery" for at least a little bit, maybe let us run around the other characters' houses instead of just Rabbit's. And for Twilight Town, I would have liked to have been able to see how the other districts looked.

Going straight to the endgame after San Fransokyo. I know that the creators decided to focus on quality over quantity when it came to the worlds in this game, but I was hoping for just one surprise Disney world that could give fans one last breather after rescuing Aqua and Ven. If not a Disney world, then I would have at least liked to have been able to explore more of Land of Departure or visit Radiant Garden outside of cut-scenes. I love RG's look from BBS and I would have loved to walk around and see the world restored to its former glory.

Vanitas was frustratingly underused in this game. For all the hype surrounding his return, I expected more from him. Especially because the Kingdom Hearts concerts kept including his theme music with the "heroes and heroines" meddley, tantalizing us with the possibility of him getting a redemption arc. And instead, he just dies all over again, only this time, he's calmly accepting his own demise instead of freaking out like after his final fight in BBS. As someone who loves the idea of him getting redeemed, that was a big disappointment. The only thing I'm hoping for is if he somehow comes back in the next saga, because it was kind of unclear whether he's really dead, if there's a way for him to come back, or if he's just faking it like Xigbar was.

Things I wish had been handled differently but I can ultimately live with and hope are handled better in the next saga:

The lack of focus on or explanation of the X era mysteries we've been pondering for years disappointed me on first playthrough, but now that I've had time to think about it, I realized that X/Unchained X/Back Cover/Union X/Whatever-They-Change-The-Name-To-Next isn't truly a part of the Xehanort Saga, but rather, the connective tissue that sets the stage for what comes after Xehanort. It was supposed to set just enough things up that we'd know who the Foretellers were and what Xigbar being Luxu meant. But because it was released before KH3, the fandom built up our expectations that the mysteries of what happened would ultimately be answered in III, so when they alluded to Marluxia and Larxene's past as Dandelions without following up on it, I was kind of disappointed. But now I realize that it was meant to open the door to them playing larger roles in the Lost Masters Saga.

Maleficent and Pete just lurking in the background despite trailers and previous games hyping up her interest in Luxu's box and the Book of Prophecy. This is something else that was clearly being set up for the sequel, but I wish Maleficent had at least had more to do. A boss fight with Pete followed by a conversation to establish that she's waiting for the dust to settle between the Guardians of Light and Seekers of Darkness before she makes her move would have been nice.

The sudden introduction of this mystery girl. At first, I thought when they kept mentioning this girl, they were talking about Kairi, and that we'd be starting to learn more about her past in Radiant Garden. I soon realized that the implications of Kairi's life pre-Destiny Islands were a red herring, but the more they kept bringing this girl up, the more I was expecting there to be some kind of explanation for who she was in the game itself. I can understand in retrospect why Isa and Ansem SoD would suddenly bring her back now, because both knew they were going to die (Isa at least had the promise of recompletion) and wanted closure on burning questions they hadn't thought about in years. Considering that the epilogue and secret reports imply she's amnesiac Ava, I think this is another case of planting seeds for future installments in a way that I wish had been done better.

After years of Aqua being celebrated as a badass Keyblade Master, her not really getting to do anything in this game is upsetting. Sure, things make sense from an in-universe perspective: she sent her Keyblade to Destiny Islands as a beacon for Sora, Riku, and/or Mickey to find her, which weakened her already worn down defenses when Xehanort’s heartless came for DiZ. With how much warping Terranort does, I figured he’d attacked Ven at speeds so close to superhuman that Aqua didn’t have time to react. And in Land of Departure, Nomura wanted to have Ven’s awakening be a dramatic moment where he swoops in to protect someone he cares about. But having Aqua kick Vanitas’ ass only for her to get taken down by a single Firaga spell feels like a poor way to achieve the desired result.

While having some Disney worlds follow the plots to their respective movies was expected, Sora, Donald, and Goofy's presence their felt a little insubstantial. I mean, I'm not saying they should have just copied the movie shot for shot with SDG there in the background, but it felt like they missed out on large chunks of the movies. It was forgivable in Kingdom of Corona because they were there for the important parts and Marluxia basically told them what they missed re: Rapunzel. With Arendelle it felt weird that they were really only involved with Elsa running away, the Marshmallow fight, and the ending. The rest was pretty much spent with Larxene coming up with elaborate ways to keep them away from the plot of the movie. With Pirates it was just ridiculous. They were really only there for the escape from Davy Jones locker and then just ran around with fake!Jack doing their own thing until it was time for the final fight of the movie. It's hard to not know the plots of Tangled and Frozen due to pop culture at this point, but if you're playing this game with no knowledge of the pirates of the Caribbean movies, you're going to be very confused on what's happening in the maelstrom fight.

Minor quibbles:

An explanation for what happened to Demyx would have been nice, but then, that could just be another mystery to be addressed later.

The whole "rewind time and replay everything before Sora's near-death until things change at the last moment" thing didn't really make a whole lot of sense, but it wasn't too big of a deal, and Xigbar's "we don't need you to make a second blunder" implies that he had something to do with it, which can hopefully be explained properly at a later date.

Little moments that weren’t necessarily big for the story, but I enjoyed anyway for personal reasons:

At first, I was crushed by Even’s return to the Organization because I loved the fanfic Why The Sun Sets Red where he becomes a surrogate parent figure to Xion, and wanted that relationship to be a reality in canon. Then when he saved Ansem, Hayner, Pence, and Olette from Fake Ansem, my head was saying “this is probably a trap”, but my heart screamed #ShittyScienceDadConfirmed. And I was so relieved when my heart turned out to be right. I will probably end up writing a post-III fanfic of Even bonding with his Science Daughter at some point.

I generally stay away from shipping in the KH fandom, but after years of having SoKai as my first OTP, I came to start shipping SoRiKai, and as upset as I am about Sora’s fate (I can’t really complain about that too badly since Nomura already promised that Sora would still be the main character in post-KH3 installments so having this kind of ending should have been expected, if not for 3 than for a future title), I at least take comfort in the fact that there’s enough wiggle room for SoRiKai headcanons set after Sora’s inevitable return.

Everything else that I absolutely loved:

The visuals were absolutely freaking gorgeous. On every single world, they went out of their way to make the graphics as beautiful as possible. The 2D fire effects on Olympus, the different shaders used each world to make Sora, Donald, and Goofy fit with the aesthetic...

The Skein of Severance. While I wish we'd gotten to explore more of the Keyblade Graveyard during the final battle, or that the maze was a little more elaborate, I loved having to fight multiple members of the new Organization simultaneously, and oh dear god the aftermath of every fight: Xion's return, Terra regaining control of his body, Saix's death.... I was sobbing after every boss fight.

Despite how complicated the lore has become, the story itself was actually pretty straightforward. It was pretty refreshing and reminded me of KH1 and BBS, where the heroes have a clear overarching goal and a reason for why they're traveling to other worlds.

As much as I wish that Unchained X had been held until after KH3, there's a stroke of genius to the epilogue: Because of Xehanort's whole "balance between dark and light" obsession and Riku's whole "dark is not necessarily evil" character arc, I've seen a consistent idea within the fandom that the main villain of the next saga after Xehanort should be one of those who fit into the "Light is not good" trope. And by implicitly setting up the "Lost Masters" for that role in the epilogue, they've both ensured a masterful conflict between the Keyblade Wielders of the past and the ones of the present, and ensured that the next saga will be as heartbreaking as possible by ensure that the fandom is already attached to these characters.

Honestly, despite the issues I've had with the game above, I absolutely enjoyed Kingdom Hearts 3. It was worth the wait in my opinion, and I can't wait to see what the future holds. My only hope, given the epilogue and secret ending, that we get an announcement of Kingdom Hearts IV within a year or so. Doesn't need to release next year, but it definitely needs to be announced for development.

#kingdom hearts 3 #kh3 spoilers #kh spoilers #kingdom hearts spoilers #kingdom hearts 3 spoilers #my thoughts #long post #my review

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