Kingdom Hearts 3 broke my heart.

I am a fan of Kingdom Hearts. i've been here through the first game and even though I grew up without the money to play every game I stuck with the series as best I could. In fact I've bought multiple copies of games on multiple systems and beat a couple of the games not just once but 3 or more times. Here is a list of the things I've done involving this series.

1: I bought KH1/2/COM on more than one system such as ps2,3, and 4. 2: I've played and beaten on the hardest difficulty on each main installment (except critical mode of 3) 3: I have 100% KH1 which might not seem like a big deal but it is the only game I have 100% ever. Got all the trophies and so on. 4: I stuck with the story and even recently before 3 came out played and beat most of the games. (except DDD since it wasn't my kind of deal since I don't like the flowmotion part of the combat.)

You could say I'm a fan of the games and have done what I can to in general keep up with the series as well as have enjoyed the series.

But then 3 came out and I was just not happy with it. After waiting for so long and playing the game and screaming and ranting about certain plot points that just don't make sense to me (KH is notoriously hard to keep up with plot wise and I am just not the brightest person in the world when it comes to shit. Like I really need some things explained outright for me and to some degree do not mind spoilers for some things) I swore off KH the entirety from now on cause it was just that bad of a game for me. It wasn't a horrible game but the direction they started taking it in was just so far removed from what the original 2 games in the numerical series were that this was just NOT Kingdom Hearts at all. Sure you can say it is a love letter to the biggest of fans but I can say that a letter to regular fans was something it needed to do more than cater to such a rabid fanbase compared to a regular fanbase. I thought this was unfair and then bought Memory of Melody. That is now the worst game in the series to me. So I dived into what people thought and looked at a ton of youtubers who played the game and saw what they thought. I looked at reviews of non youtubers and read what they thought and the game has made the fanbase more divided than anything I'd ever seen from a fanbase. So I replayed the game with the intent to write down all I felt on the game to give it a fair review. Like I said I'm a filthy casual and I can give stuff a large break when it comes to media and have a large understanding of what that thing is meant to be. Sometimes a product is meant to be a certain way and we have to enjoy it for what it is and I can try and do that. I mean I love the WWE and Yugioh and anyone who is a part of those fanbases knows in their hearts (kek hearts) how bad those things can be at times. So I played the game and wrote down all the thoughts I had on it and Some might be easy to explain while others are in general probably at least fair on how I feel about it.

Kingdom Hearts is a series not meant for the new comer. It knows what it wants to be and does that thing. It isn't here to make everyone happy and that is just absolutely fine in general. I've been a fan and it makes me happy that the game is one long story that I can appreciate and make call backs to in stuff. I remember being so rewarded when I looked at my then best friend who skipped over chain of memories (I had to emulate it but I think it was fair of me to do so since I bought the game 3 times since now that I have the money to do so) and said he knew what happened because he saw the cutscene of Sora reaching the top and Namine betraying him by putting him into a pod. I laughed at him cause he was a fool who knew nothing of how the story went cause he foolishly just thought he didn't NEED to play the game. This made me more invested into the series than he was. I stuck with the series reading up articles and even watching videos on the series for stuff I missed out on since again i couldn't afford everything. They were building a story over a decade long and at the end it just didn't do it for me. It's not that the story wasn't the end of the series in general. Heck gotta make dat' money Y'all but in general this was the end of a saga for Xehanort and it just didn't cut it. But maybe I'm not starting at the right spot to give my feelings on it. Maybe I'm coming fresh off a game play and feeling a rant building for multiple reasons. So let me start with the positives before I bury the list under a pile of problems for me.

So I'll be putting things in order of good, mixed, bad. They will be somewhat fair and if they have an answer you have my sincerest apologies but remember I'm slightly the "dumb" and would in general like to just get simple straight answers. Something simple and clean if you would. On that note

1: The starting song is a god damned banger - Face my fears is up there with sanctuary which is better than Simple and clean. To be fair though simple and clean was made in like a flight and pretty much is nonsensical to the game in general. However it is a good song. How could it not be with one of japans best pop artists? Have you heard sakura drops? Colors? Traveling? Apples and cinnamon? Fuck man this song is just really good. 2: The game looks great - Sure the game might not look like ps2 graphics anymore but this isn't a bad thing it just is a different thing. The only time I thought it looked bad was during the pirates area where they had to make real people. Sometimes it is better to have a different art theme and even if something is just ok at best during it it can still be over all great. Everyone looked good during it. It just in general looked like a new version of KH entirely. 3: You can power up keyblades - One of the best parts of the game is powering up keyblades. Now sure mickey saying "we should have powered up our keyblades" is a stupid line in general when they are magic items and not fully meant to break form normal stuff but i think the ability to latch onto a key and make that sucker your main key is a great idea. Finally I can power up keys like sweet memories or the kingdom key and go through the cutscenes with the keyblade never changing and it look like it's meant to be there. 4: The whole getting treasure for sinking ships - Even if in general people might not like the ship combat the idea of being a pirate and stealing treasure from a ship when you sink one of the large ones is one of the best thematical ideas in the game. You can just sail the ocean and just pirate ship for loot if you wanted to and since you get xp during it and get your ship to be better it just is a great idea in its entirety. 5: Rikus keyblade - That is one of the better keyblades. I'm not gonna lie but the final fantasy cloud based keyblades where they are more realistic have been one of my favorite designs and I am sad i can't throw it on sora. I like the idea of an actual blade instead of a blunt weapon in the game since it just feels cooler sometimes. Riku getting a keyblade that not only looks more like a sword but is also still a key for a more modern car is one of the cooler things they have ever put in. 6: The call back to union cross players - This was a little lover note to people who played the game. They grabbed a ton of names and threw them in as you threw hundreds of keyblades at the giant heartless storm mob thing. I think it is great and even if I didn't play one of the names that pops up is my actual name so I find that pretty cool whenever I see it.

And that is it. Those are the best parts of KH3 to me. Everything else is either a mixed bag or just not good. I'm sure you can tell which one has more in it. As for the stuff that is in the middle of both good and bad let me make it clear that some stuff that is bad will probably be talked about in the bad section because it needs its own commentary.

1: All the party members - I always was a little sad having to remove one of the characters in my party to add the one new person they wanted to add in and was always sad at that limitation but with 3 you can now have ALL THE MEMBERS. This is great because now I have access to all of my forms with donal...... Oh right, they're not in the game anymore. 2: Nice to one and done an area - Back in the day when I first played the original first game I never went back cause I beat the level and thought it was extra stuff. When I got older and playued through 2 I was a little impatient and just didn't want to keep going back. Now as I am older and wiser and more patient I just do the thing cause it's a part of the game and deal. Thankfully it is all in one trip which is good CAUSE I DON'T WANNA FUCKING PLAY THESE LEVELS EVER AGAIN. 3: I'm gonna say it and people are gonna question me (probably not I'm not a large content creator thus people probably don't care about my opinion so strange of you to be here reading this) but I fucking hate winnie the pooh. I don't like him as a person and I'm just not a fan of his entire world. I only like Eeyore and not cause "gosh that's how I feel" Eeyore is the fucking man. He never lets his bad mood get him down and he powers through even when life is shit. Good for him man. Love that guy. Such a trooper. I just don't like pooh but the levels. God Kingdom Hearts mini games are just mostly not fun in general so not having to play so many mini games in poohs level is fantastic. EXCEPT EVERY WORLD HAS A DAMNED MINI GAME IN IT. 4: Speaking of mini games the ship combat is fine. - It's just, fine. 5: I had so much money - I don't remember playing any other game having so much money. I remember caring and investing and even trying to get money to spend on stuff in some points and in here it just.... I never spent it until i got bored and started using food. I didn't use food until the last world and beyond cause I wanted to finish the game faster. I mean the change of pace having money is nice but there was nothing really to do with it. Maybe I should have bought Hayner, Pence and Olette a ton of pretzels with it. 6: Playing as any other keyblade wielder - Man this was one of those great moments that I was excited to do. Having played as many other characters during other games was always nice and refreshing and being able to do so here was great. It got me excited to play as Mickey again since I got to use him a few times in KH2 or to be able to use Ventus or Aqua again cause they were gonna be saved and be able to fight in the upcoming battle. That is you know. If they are used in the game more than one time each. 7: Giant heartless battle - One of the best moments in the game was the "goofy just died" moment. Not because The goof man "died" but because you got to solo fight a crowd of enemies and in this game it was so cool to have that call back. The shit icing on that beautiful cake was having to use the train to win. Like it just felt like I was making no progress and I can't on my own fight the enemies and no matter how hard you try you can never stop the enemies ever. 8: The what if scenario - The group dying was pretty cool and was a great what if but would have been better if they didn't come back to the past and have Ventus run up and think it was Terra again. It was cool for the lingering will to step in and help but even then the whole situation was so stupid that it could have been written better. What if instead of doing the whole scenario it was a mind fuckery to sora to put him down mentally like they had been trying to entire game. What if it showed him losing and that it was possible? Instead we got this long winded scenario where people didn't learn from their first mistake and tried to go run up to Terra when in that moment Aqua when Ven tried going should have grabbed his shoulder and said "you know it's not him so let's just get ready to fight"

Those are the mixed bag moments I was commenting on. Some things are fine and aren't really an issue except the are a part of a bigger problem in itself which makes them a mixed bag. The last part's I'll be writing about are pretty much a giant rant or asking questions to things. There are problematic points I'll be making as well. So now let's look at the bad stuff in KH3. However, before I get into it, I want to also write down the not as bad stuff as well as some of the really big stuff so I'll make sure to point out when it is a gripe that isn't the worst thing in the world compared to it actually being not good.

1: Nitpick/The social media is dumb - Look I'm not much of a social media person and I know todays kids and teens are all about that jazz and such but man this part of the game is pretty dumb. I am in no way too old to "get hip with it grandpa" and think social media is a bad thing. Times and things change but WHY IS THIS A THING? Sora and friends are out saving the world and probably do not know about current phones since they are so busy. They would be like really old people trying to catch up with todays world and just in general should not have time enough to do it. Sure giving a phone is fine which whatever they can just add in ways to contact which again makes the phone fine but social media is dumb. What platform are they on? Who is following them? What world is this being sent to in general? Does anyone really care?

2: Nitpick/Why 7 VS 13? - I think the number is just really off. Ok look the original organization 13 was fine. Having 14 members in it wasn't a big deal and sure fighting them seperately and not all in one game made me a little sad until final mix came out but at least i got to fight Marluxia in all his pretty boy glory. The point I make is they just seem to have stuck with the 13 which is fine I guess? It just seemed like it was more or less there for no real reason. Sure we would have to fight every single Xehanort around such as Ansem, Xemnas, Terranort, Xigbar who works with old man Xehanort, Young Xehanort, Old man Xehanort. If you also in general wanted him to have each good guy fight a bad guy we would need one for each single keyblade wielder to come out. So let's say Kairi and Axel were just gonna join in so we can have for whatever reason Xion and Roxas just pop out to fight people. We would have need for a total of 7 enemies to fight. Let's just use these guys here as people for people to fight. We can have terranort fight someone before he comes back as lingering will to fight and get his body back. We can have Kairi fight Xion until she defects in general and fights another person with her. We can have axel fight Xemnas so he can get revenge and then have him lose and Roxas can come out. So on and so forth until we have just enough for each person to be matched with another person. You wouldn't need to stretch and find whatever you can and just fill the numbers. You could have at that point just filled it with villains you knew you wanted on your team. Not just bring back generic dudes who don't even need to be here. I'll get more into that in a moment but the numbers just seem off and could have been anything not 7 v 13 but like I said. Nitpick.

3: The plot of Sora flying around this time is a little weak. - So Sora lost his powers and needs to get them back. So he fucks off for a bit until he can regain the powers. Wouldn't it be better if he also trained with Kairi and Axel? What about just going into the realm of darkness to help the others get Aqua? What if instead of just going back and forth to each Disney world like he normally did he in general just.....trained. See the point of the other games was "close the keyholes of the world so heartless stop getting in. Stop those nobodies from opening Kindom Hearts." Kind like saving the world is a great motivation to have compared to "fuck off until you are good or something". It's one of the biggest issues in general. Now if he was told something more substantial than "you need the power of waking" than it would have made the grind through much better. Add in a new plot element for him to need to travel to lands in general so he can earn the power of waking. Send him to places to get that shit instead of "get stronger". You think I can't just do that shit with story? Shit's boring man lemme do stuff.

4: You cannot turn off attractions - That is without playing critical mode. Man Attractions are in general one of the worst parts of the game. Sure I find it hilarious when I'm fighting an important boss (such as Xemnas) and I last hit him with a merry go round but in general they just suck. They aren't fun and they slow the games combat down with a cinematic. Sure they can be "avoided" and I "don't have to use them" but they exist in the game. They are the creators vision and he wants you to use them. If they didn't want it to be a huge part of the games combat system they wouldn't add it in and the fact that it shows up so often just kinda proves they want you to use the thing. Combat in here is very floaty if you haven't noticed and a more grounded approach is sometimes best. This is what the attractions do since they still try and attack you thus getting closer to the attraction in the first place. It's really a jarring object. Telling me not to use it while having the chance to actually accidentally press the button is frustrating. It's the smaller version of telling someone don't be mad when they are mad or try not to be depressed. It's hard to avoid and the answer isn't just "don't do it." Especially when the game puts in abilities to make them more prominent such as extending the time on them. Another point on this is that if the developer wanted them to be optional they wouldn't sometimes be mandatory or even show up during boss fights. Either this was an added on horse shit thing where Disney was like "add attractions or we're done" or Nomura just was like "i recently went to disney land and you gotta put this in it's dope". Joke aside it is one of the worst parts of the game since I can't turn them off and it is hard to get around them. Let me turn them off fully or let them be used as an ability where you can add them in if you want it. Customization should be more of a thing than a gimmick you keep getting. Also they show up so often and I believe in every enemy spawn group. Multiple times even if you miss it the first time. Having so much prominence placed onto this one mechanic just shows they went in hard on it and sure if it was just the rock titan or just the horde of heartless at the end or maybe even rare I wouldn't find it much of a problem but it is EVERY FREAKING COMBAT. I hit that button on accident more times than I wanted to that in general I was trying to use a spell but I missed it by seconds or something and the carnival ride started up and I just said "god dammit" and had to end it dealing a burst of damage since you can't just stop it, it has to go full swing. Also only in critical mode is kind of bullshit. Add it to every mode in the game and it'll be less of an issue.

5: Nitpick/Sora is an idiot - Look I don't mean the whole "he's so stupid now he just is always happy or has dumb dialogue" I mean the idiot tried to touch fire and instead of water magic which he now has and I spammed on the fire balls he walked up to a freaking inferno of flames and just tried to see if it was hot by touching it with his bare hands. Shit Sora you dumb fuck Goofy had a better idea than the mage and the main character and he's not always the brightest. Fuck you.

6: There is too much stuff in this game - Way too many mechanics and most of them are on forever. You have so much you can do such as the shotlock, Flowmotion, Carnival rides, Extra forms, Summoning the fat cat dream pokemon, so many mini games,  just so much shit and I'm sure I forgot something. Now look I can let go of the whole "cat" thing because it is a summon and those are normal but in general it just feels like the entire game was overloaded with everything from every other game EXCEPT for cards and if we don't have cards for character upgrades or something it feels like a waste. (that's a joke) The point is that there is too much stuff and it's all filler and fluff and we can just have a nice game without 10,000 things to learn in the first section of the game.

7: Nitpick/ I think the selfies are just dumb - I've taken a total of maybe 5 selfies. All of which are to show a single person in that specific moment. Selfies don't really do much in the world we play in for KH3 and I just think it is in general a dumb game mechanic. However it is not required to do so it's not a big deal to have in. Just another nitpick.

8: Food and cooking - Look, this is not monster hunter. This is not another game where food is an important detail and sure I don't mind the addition of it if you really wanna put it in but it does make the game easier when used. In that direction fine making a game easier isn't a bad thing, however, constantly telling me now is a good time to find ingredients for little chef is annoying every time. I could figure it out if I really wanted it but in general since it is an optional mechanic to which I can just buy the parts for it and even the food at a kupo shop than what is the point in adding in the game play mechanics for it? The mini games are dumb and take too long to do for such a small mini game. Crack and egg get soup. Nothing else but crack an egg. So than the game is too short for a mechanic I'm supposed to do often? Why not add in a larger game so that I can help him create the object one time to see if he likes it and then when he adds it on I can order the object from him. Don't add it into the kupo store if I you want me to make it and don't make me make it be so tedious if you want me to make it. Also why is sora cooking at all? It's Remys passion not mine. He's even shown to run a packed restaurant all on his own at the end of the game in the credits scene.

9: More customization please - Here's a major issue I have with the game. There is less customization compared to other games. This is strange as in general it seems to be the same. The problem is this. I have to use flowmotion in the game. It is not an option because in certain levels it is a legitimate requirement to use for moving elsas castle. It is required in a couple other places as well but the point still stands. I need to have them equipped in order to make progress. The fact that in KH2 I could turn off big moves from team members but cannot now takes the agency away from me from making my fighting style more what I want to do. This means in order for me to really enjoy the game I have to really accept mechanics I was not a fan of in DDD. Maybe having an option for character customization such as turning off forms, and what special attacks you wanna do would be nice instead of giving everything under the sun. Do I want to be a fast mobile fighter? Than make that a character level abiliy choice instead of just making me have it from the start and also making it mandatory for levels. Allow me to remove the big moves with my team and stop making them always on since I never liked them. Sure I can ignore them but it comes down to the same thing as the attractions. Sometimes you cannot avoid hitting the wrong thing. This also goes into the whole magic sucking ass in this game. Every spell is offensive and thus it just feels like it is the same. Wanna do a little small thing with some damage? Wanna do massive damage comparatively? It just feels like they wanted to simplify the whole having a summon, having a spell, having 2 items on or something along those lines. This stops you from having more options on your character and just stream lines you in to a generic build. I didn't use ice once past the first time finding out its pretty much a fire ball. I used cure, fire, water, thunder. Thunder for crowds, fire for damage, water for crowds also because I just stopped caring and cura cause I heal all my damage cause DONALD NEVER HEALS YOU. WE'RE 4000 GAMES IN MAKE DONALD HEAL BETTER. This again comes back to the limits. Let me turn them off since I do not like them. If they worked as magic they would be better cause the magic sucks ass in the game. I mostly after a while stopped doing any real care in magic and just used healing. This also comes back to the original abilities in second form that you can unlock via smacking them with your keyblade. They would be nice since the magic in the game again sucks ass so having something to use magic bar that is not cure would be a nice touch.

10: For a guy who lost his powers I sure have a ton of abilities right away - Remember when in the beginning of each game you lost all your powers and had to slowly unlock everything and it would come to you not just willy nilly? Man those were the days. Could earn powers for reasons. I'm not helpless in the game if I can run up mountains or sky scrapers. If I can glide with the shotlock from one spot to another. I'm too strong if anything at the start and it just makes you feel like the game is padding time before the small amount of story at the end that matters. This could have literally been with the final chapter prologue and it would have worked fine. But no, we didn't get that. That leads into us just spending time until something happens. The story has its own issues (which I will touch up on near the end) and it has some really bad pacing issues. There is bad pacing, and then there is bad writing because of bad pacing. Why not put some shit in the middle. Show I'm getting better instead of just having me just do everything all at once.  That's not really an issue if they space parts of it in or let me play as the other characters while sora is fucking off for power. Imagine if they added in more parts with Riku while Sora quests for strength. Imagine us going through the land of darkness instead of just Disney world after Disney world. Imagine what we could have had had it not just been all the Disney stuff then the finale all at once. It wasn't bad pacing for the end to pick up, it was bad pacing for there to be nothing in the middle. This is where the final fantasy characters could have been nice. Adding in the end of the Cloud and Sephiroth stuff so we can fight for more power there. Having us talk with Leon and the gang while they battle with some heartless just in the area and needing help. This would have made better pacing since it would have cut the monotony of the Disney grind. There are times when you just sit there waiting for stuff to happen as you run through world after world waiting for plot in general to just move forward. This does not mean it is bad pacing, this just means there is nothing important going on and leads to the story just falling short of being gripping and engaging. I again bring up the final fantasy characters because let's face it, if they did exist it would give something in general more time to flesh out. There is nothing to do but repeated disney movies that either play out like normal or that you play no real part in since it is after the story in the whole movie. Sure it was great to see what happened with boo and the monsters but Randall just is there and I'm sure he was gone at the end of the first movie. In fact after using my Disney plus account (#notsponsored) to just hit the end of the movie it shows him in a trailer getting beat with a shovel. He probably got back but still.

11: The combat is too "floaty" - I'm in the sky like fucking constantly man. Like all the time. Which is a bad thing since the fucking god damned level creation is now just a tall hallway. See I say tallway (patent pending) beause the level of the game is still pretty small but now it just also goes up a long way. I know this because there are so many flashing walls that there should be seizure warnings in the beginning of the game. It doesn't stop either since in general you have to climb high and doing so brings you ledges and if you have to hit people flying then you are gonna fall. Sure we can use magic but magic runs out and is complete ass. Now look this isn't just me saying it can happen since it does right in the hercules area. The first area where they could have been testing thing and probably did which means someone dealt with this shit and said it was fine enough to pass. That's just bad game mechanics right there. If you want me to be floaty in combat that do not put ledges I can fall down in your game. I do not want to climb all the way back to the top just to get into more fights I might fall down because of. Maybe make the parts I'm on bigger platforms. It just seems they want us to use the attractions because you can't fall off the safe attractions. Another thing is that it isn't just combat that is "floaty" but your movement is also a little too fast. Making larger areas and then making us speed up into a sprint is fine but having me stop right next to a save spot inches too short of touching it only for me to Vroom Vroom right over it because of how fast and far I move is god damned infuriating. It also continues combat wise as an issue in that once you get the ability to knock people up you start going into air combat and smacking them away and you can do that so much since in general the areas you fight in are so large that you can knock a single heartless out of the spawning area enough that you have to run back to fight it.

12: Proud mode is a fucking joke - I think I died a total of one time in proud mode which is probably more than others. See the difficulty has been said to be really easy on this games play through and I'm inclined to believe them. Here is the thing. I know critical mode now exists. I just don't like it. See critical mode was doable in 2 since it was just again harder stuff but in this it is no longer you playing KH3. It is you playing Dark Souls which if I wanted to play that kind of game I'd pop in my copy of bloodborne or turn on my copy of dakr souls 2 which in general I'm not a huge fan of so I stopped playing those games. Difficulty in a game is fine but there is going from hard to fuck why am I playing dark souls? No I'm not the kind of guy who says anything hard is dark souls because I grew up in the era of gaming where games had one difficulty and you had to learn to "get gud" or deal with never winning. Even if I was never good at games I didn't shy away from things being difficult. There is however an exception that the game changes so drastically that there is no happy medium between pants shittingly hard or baby mode. The other thing is that in general DLC should not dictate if a game is good on its own. DLC is meant to enhance the fucking experience and should not make me want to have to buy something (this was free) to get a god damned happy experience out of something that cost me top dollar to begin with. If I need your DLC to have fun or enjoy the story than you clearly missed the damned mark. DLC is extra boss battles. It is final mix of the game when it comes out. It turns your vanilla play through into more than what it once was. It adds aesthetics to the game not makes the game difficult and if it does it doesn't make the game different to such a degree that I'd rather fucking play a game that was created to be that difficult because their combat system is hand crafted for said difficulty. Secondly on that list of being too easy who the fuck thought kupo coins was a good idea. I literally just stopped giving a shit since I could use my now always full magic bar since magic is ass to heal when I needed it and to just run away with my big fucking area during battles and not take damage until I could go in and do slappies for a while before running away and gauging if I need to heal and then if I died come back to life. With all the power moves and free attractions each combat I could have beaten proud mode without gimping myself by trying to not use attractions. The forms didn't help with that either because I would just second form and have a brand new powerful thing to do since it was right there. Not only that but rage form is a full heal and why am I heartless sora again? Either way rage form into run away fast because I run like I'm form kenya with all the movement abilities and then with kupo coin and magic makes the difficulty in here easier than "just don't use it". Mostly because it is implemented in the game and they want you to use it. Telling someone not to use the thing is again stupid because if they didn't want me to use it they would remove the feature. This is no longer a kids game. I'm over 10 years older than I once was and I'm a big boy and want to not be treated like a child. Sure they could be putting it in for kids but why not just have it in easy mode since kids will either do easy mode or know they want that extra challenge.

13: Many of the fights and heartless are just not that good compared to earlier games - So firstly the giant horde of heartless was cool one time. Each time you fight it it gets more and more boring and feels like a cop out on trying to make a good battle and a "oh man this is such a cool idea lets use it alot more than we need to". For a game that was in development for 6 years you think they would have more varied enemies and fights and by that I mean more better heartless. Also some of the heartless are just kinda eh in general. Not only that but the places we visit feel like the heartless are kinda thrown in there and they just made way less enemies than normal. Maybe that is me forgetting if other games did the same thing but I can remember many places having more unique enemies that made more sense. Like why is the monkey heartless here? This is not the time to return to monke or some shit like that and it makes 0 sense when I have to fight it in more than one area. How about the lady heartless with the umbrella. Doesn't fit in every single place it shows up and just feels like it is there. Sometimes they do a nice job putting in certain heartless such as the reindeer which I thought was a nice touch but i don't remember them interacting at all with the reindeer from frozen. I also in general remember each heartless having a newer form such as the fat heartless eventually turned into fire breathers and then eventually into shield dudes. They do not make a reappearance but the fat ones show up all over the place and it would be nice to fight things that are great for the area. Some just also have eh designs and the game just feels poorly made because of it. Some bosses are just boring as well. In fact off the top of my head I can't really remember one I like but I sure as shit can remember the one I hated most which happens to be the airship section where you board a machine gun heartless to fight that sky bird thing in the pirates section. I even found the robots in general tedious because they were hard to beat without the use of the robot suits and felt like another tacked on gimmick to use to make combat more easy. Had they been a single section and not everywhere in the store it would have been cooler but instead we had many fights to do with robots who almost always wrecked my shit. In fact it ruined combat a little for me in general and made the section of toy story a little less good. See most of these issues I have with the places are the grand scale of things and having to go back and forth with them with having really unmemorable heartless for the most part and just not finding the game to be that great with some of the more important parts. Enemies help to flesh the game out to be cooler and as much as I love the generic heartless the worlds make the heartless cooler by making them change to be better suited for the world they are in. Having extra enemies like nobodies and unversed without having much of a reason to have them there other than "you remember this right?" seems like a waste of design chances. Some just either were frustrating tank sponges and the others were just not good. The other issue is some bosses appeared numerous times and just didn't feel impressive when fighting them since they just keep coming back. The giant heartless who I saw in hercules mode coming back on the bridge where you first meet Baymax makes the scene not great since it is a simple color swap at most and it is the same thing again. A lot of the bosses in general just feel ok at best too design wise. I can look back at many of the designs and just name really enjoyable ones who are better than the ones we got here. Honestly the designs are just so much of a let down I don't even wanna revisit the stages which is good because the game just isnt that much fun. One of the more unfun parts of enemies is also the shield stuff they have sometimes which is just more ways to give them extra health. Why not just in general just give them more health since it is just a way to beef them up? Not only are they now mostly damage sponges but the fact that some turn into shielded damage sponges just makes me less happy to fight things. The worst version of unfun boss happens to be the lich at the end when you need to rescue everyone from it. The thing is that it not only takes forever and makes you have to fight it numerous times but it also has the ability to make you unlock from it and in such large areas that becomes tedious to deal with lengthening the entire fight from the already long fight it is.

14: Quick speed round of things I don't like that are just not as good as earlier games - Magic sucks in this game. It's all relatively the same since it is all offensive. Aero was in general the same as thunder since it is aoe with a secondary effect. Water, Fire, Ice are all the same as they shoot a ball of the element that homing devices onto an enemy and when not in general locked on fucks off wherever. I miss the older spells and how they worked and felt more unique in 2 while also having more than just offense. Maybe introduce more spells to the next main entry based on the spells of every other game? I'm just not a fan of some of these worlds as they are all new. I haven't had a chance to catch most of the new movies (even thought I have disney plus which is great you should totally buy it #stillnotsponsored) I just don't like some of the places and the mini games in the don't help. Slight inconvenience but making me have to press x as I load new levels is kinda dumb. Maximus should be a party member. Give me him instead of eugene. Why do I need the flowmotion to progress? Hooray WATER LEVELS MY FAVORITE. Crabs. Watch me beat davy jones in a 4 on 1 battle.Darkubes are dumb. Jesus christ Jiminy shut up I'm trying to grind in the best place for the end game. Oh look it's an organization member maybe I can figh....nah they gone now. THERE ARE SO MANY CUTSCENES.

15: 2 final things before the story issues - Playing as other characters, keyblade forms. One of the biggest gripes I had in this was each time I used a new keyblade i wanted to fight with it and not transform into a new form because I do not like the new forms. They do nothing for me and since they kind of all are ok at best that it just kinda feels meh to me to use them. I pretty much used the kingdom key because second form was fine and stayed a keyblade. If anything I would rather have a new style of fighting like second form in general like the original forms are in KH2. I like valor and wisdom form and as cool of a call back as it was for the 2 first keyblades to be given to you I don't like the final ability to be used which makes me less inclined to find a weapon I do like. Which leads into my second final gripe. I was really excited to play as multiple keyblade wielders. Playing as mickey in 2 was super fucking cool and I miss that. Playing as Aqua and Riku in this made me hope for eventual fights at the end where it was each person fought someone else and you would get an ability to play through a final area for extra boss fights as any character for extra gameplay. I was excited to see what Axel and Kairi could do since in general they finally had moments to shine. You could make them fight and even if they did win just have them lose via cutscene and bring back Roxas and have Xion turn to your side. So many issues I have with that because it goes into another issue of.......

16: Everyone but Sora is fucking worthless - I have seen Dragonball GT and the main main main main main issue I have with that show is no one matters except Goku. See in other series characters could fight and kill or do something against the not main villain and be worth a damn but when GT happened everyone kinda just. Became worthless. No one could win a fight except Goku especially near the end when they had him fight 7 dragons. Sora does the same here when he has to be involved the final boss rush in the game. I'd have liked to see other characters stand out but even then he is the only one who can fight Xehanort when Mickey failed to do anything. It was all sora. Even waking Aqua was all sora. The only time someone did something was when Aqua fought Vanitas and still got her shit kicked in at the end during the cinematic and at that point he just didn't wanna fight 3 people. This is a shame because as I already said it would have been cooler to have those characters fight people and it matter. Let's break down the people who would be on our side Riku Kairi Axel Roxas Terra Ven Aqua Xion Sora Mickey Thats a total of 10 different people to play as. That would have made the final boss fights unique and super cool. You say that would have taken so much time and I say "Cool" but it would have been cooler to fight as these different characters. If they put in 2 extra just do them all. It is the most let down of let downs in gameplay mechanics. Who could they have fought in the game? Let's look at the villains Xigbar Marluxia Terranort Young Xehanort Xemnas Ansem Larxene Luxord Older Xehanort Evil Clone Riku Vanitas Saix Xion There are 12 total people to fight that are not the original Xehanort and each one could be fought with someone totally different. If Xion fights twice but wasn't really trying the first time she can be fine for the second battle. Let's give everyone a person to fight. Let's get the easy ones out of the way. Remember the ones who we fight first don't matter as much because each person not Older Xehanort do not matter even if they are him in other forms. Terra as the lingering will is gonna fight Terranort and get his body back. Riku can fight Ansem who tries to use his darkness and their past against him. Kairi can fight Xion who is noticed to not even be trying and then kairi can be captured to still do the ending they planned for. Xion who now defects can join and fight Larxene Axel can fight Xemnas and lose leaving him almost die while Roxas can jump out and fight him instead Ventus can finally defeat Vanitas Aqua can fight and defeat Xigbar who she has some history with Sora can fight and defeat Luxord so he can give him the card he was going to give. This fight can be more simple than the others and Sora can have to fight against the other Riku Mickey can fight Marluxia Before losing his fight with Xemnas Axel can fight and beat Saix We get to the final battle and while Sora who ran off to find Kairi he has to get through Younger Xehanort to get to the older one.

Look at that clean battle line up. Throw them in the correct order and you can have fights with so many people and even do the stuff needed for it to make the story go smoothly. Everyone gets to be unique and have their day in the sun. The final fight would be sora and gang fighting Xehanort and since the end game would be choose who fights who you can literally have over 120 different fights total if you leave out Donald and Goofy from the sora versions of fights. Heck allow us to fight the final boss final main form and we can in general have even more as we fight him with each character.

17: What is the difference between a heart and a soul? - This is a simple question because they keep saying we don't need the bodies cause we still have their hearts and I'm just having troubles figuring out if the story writers know the damn difference between a heart which is a physical thing or a concept of the soul which is the metaphysical thing. You know like what makes you you.

18: Why doesn't Axel have 2 keyblades? - Like I like that he holds it the way he does, it's very him very unique and all that but if Roxas can have 2 and he gets one from Xion who is no longer a part of him because she is right there than why can't Axel who is specifically a dual wielder of weapons get 2 of them? I mean give the main a sword that is like a Chinese Dao sword combo. It literally is a blade that turns into 2 blades. Like don't even tell me that shit is unable to happen cause Ventus fucking gets that strange keyblade because it is unique to his style so if that is how it works and they all have based on their personality he should have two. Especially since it would be a great call back to my favorite Axel line in the entire series. "Two!?"

19: Clone Riku should not be a boss - Remember when we beat the shit out of Riku as Sora and then Riku clone and then Riku beat Riku clones ass? He's not a challenge. "He was given more darkness powers" Nice, cool cop out there. Fuck you.

20: Why kill everyone just to set up a story line when you could just do it better - So this one is a little subjective. Need sora to meet Chirithy or whatever its name is and maybe set up remind dlc or whatever but in the end you could have just broke his spirit from his body and put him in the other world by making Xehanort who tried taking him over show him everyone dying and it causing Sora to blank out and travel there as a spirit or some shit. It could have worked just as fine allowing the rest of everyone else to go fight the enemies at the end giving sora time to eventually wake up and join in while Donald and Goofy protect him. Then when he wakes up Luxord who could have said "I'll handle the boy when he wakes up could have just did what he wanted to do with the card then. It's just a dumb moment and we could have instead of dumb gameplay where we have to put ourselves back together and have to save everyone and re watch a stupid ass cutscene just watched a cutscene and went back while everyone handled what they needed to.

So before I get into the final 4 parts to get into I hope that you know I was trying to be really fair with a bunch of these and not just looking for things to gripe about. When I didn't understand things I made myself look up to make sure I understood and didn't just bitch about it for the sake of bitching. These last 4 things are kind of in general I beleive super fair.

1: The battles stop as you talk with each person - Nothing kills a fight sequence like starting it, defeating a single enemy in it, talking with a full blown conversation to them, then as they die restart with another fight scene to do it with every single person in the fight. WHY WOULD MARLUXIA AND LARXENE ALLOW LUXORD TO GIVE HIM A CARD? Why would they stop fighting? Why would Ansem, Xemnas, and Young Xehanort watch as one of the others fell and talked? Why would any sane fucking person do that? It makes 0 sense and ruins that boss rush.

2: I know you need to set up another game but fuck you - You literally made the happiest of endings where everything is the best for everyone ever and I MEAN EVERYONE except for Sora and Kairi. Fucking fuck you man. I'm not even mad that that was the ending but when everyone comes up fucking peaches and cream I tend to question the product even if they need to set up story. They can do it better, do what you did at the end of 2 and send a message in a bottle and say "there are still other worlds out there that need us, just not in this universe" or some shit like that. Shit if in general they can have emotions in games than have sora have to jump into the game. You already said my microwave can feel love so than if he can be in that rex universe than he can just go in after he has a nice break with all of his friends.

3: No - Xehanort was not a good guy the entire time. He literally murdered people and stole a childs body and ripped the emotions out of another child and made them not whole. He got a child so angry he murdered his new sorta dad. He pretty much was the whole reason anything bad happened and he was "misguided and wanted to good but did bad to do so". Then in the end he's forgiven and everything is fucking fine? Then he turns into a good guy and goes into the big heart in the sky. This is the kind of writing that literally kills off stories for at least me. Not everyone needs a second chance and sometimes people are just evil. We need stories that have people die at the end sometimes. I know it is fantasy and it can be all rainbows and butterflies but dear god Steven Universe was literally "no you" and that was the end of the entire fucking series. This is the same thing. It might not be "no you" but fuck this ending. This was a story that was supposed to end a 17 year long story and the end of this single part literally spits in the face of people who played it by saying "hey guys, he wasn't bad, he is sorry now". That is complete and utter horse shit. I don't mind that this is not the end of the series. I don't care because if I stuck around this long I would do the same if the story had a satisfying ending. Fuck man in the new game he's even evil then unless that is just how Kairi remembers him but let's face it. The gang would have told her what happened and this is just horse shit in general. This is a fucking stupid story and I literally am fine with alternate realities since time travel and other dumb stuff has been the main name of the game the entire fucking time but let's face it. This is one of the worst ideas for an ending for a villain. The buold up is fucking massive and the payout is just sad.

4: NO - Fucking xigbar. I don't even know how to put this into words how much of a let down it is for Xigbar, Fucking XIGBAR to be the next main enemy. (or at least it looks that way). Fucking we could have had Luxord. We could have had Marluxia. We could have had Demyx. We could have had fucking I don't know Vexen. We could have had fucking anyone but we get Xigbar. You could have slapped any other character onto his scenes and gotten the same amount of out of nowhere shit to explain him being next but it is fucking xigbar. Fucking unreal.

So yeah. That's my massive wrap up on KH3 and I personally do not know where I stand from here. Maybe if the next game doesn't play like shit in 400 years when Nomura gets off his ass and lets us have kingdom hearts 3.76 tie in to 4 which is oddly enough a main title and not a second part of 3 I'll see how it plays. Until then I think I'm gonna sit hereand never touch 3 again and never finish Melody of Memory.

so many. just. so many thoughts on stuff in feast for a king. lots of theories, that sort of thing. based on both in-comic info and info gathered from kosmic’s blog, some of which is like a year old. so what with how he’s changed the story over time, some might be plain wrong now. idk. enjoy my mad ramblings.

how did knife know to use sign language with rome when rome’s confident that next to nobody knows he’s deaf? i doubt that’s something knife would have gleaned from rome’s heartbeat alone.

is rome sex repulsed? pretty sure he’s definitely aro and/or ace. he’s had repeated instances of being disgusted by bodily functions as well as sex. doesn’t seem to be general touch aversion as he’s cool with handholding and being all close to king while facing that queen worm. he was engaged to a woman but for what little we know about the relationship between him and penny it could have been a strategic/political engagement that rome and/or penny wasn’t okay with.

Plus kos has inferred that rome’s aro/ace throughout their blog via asks in a multitude of indirect ways, soooo...

at the time of good leadman trying to take perkons from his cell, meat body robots (aka the helpers) were already in use. this means celadon had already received her creepy robot body shell from the aiguilles since she is all of the helpers, in some fashion. what was it that made that union between triangle alien and powerful human family? when did this alliance start?

cross was created by the aiguilles - specifically randall and rembrandt. being the creators of both cross and meat body robots, is it possible the aiguilles knew/found out about/was actively a part of cross’s change to cash? rome was born a year after cash was “born”. is it possible rome is a sort’ve meat body robot/human hybrid based from aiguille DNA? from the few aiguilles we’ve seen besides rome, they’re not a particularly physically jacked family. they’re brains and money. maybe they treated him like an experiment, fiddled with his DNA a bit? maybe this resulted in his genetic “oddities” (deaf, pink hair, orange eyes)? they were hidden from the public eye in order to have rome appear more “aiguille-ish”.

according to rome cash was his childhood friend as well as training instructor. did relations change between the leadmans and aiguilles (good leadman wasn’t to keen on randall at least, and info from scissor-as-cash adds more to her not liking how her creators treated her) in that 500 years for rome’s family to allow this? was it a strategic/political sort of thing for the sake of appearances? or did rome have more of a connection to the leadmans than just that? maybe his similar physicality to good leadman (and thus crimson) isn’t just happenstance?

cash’s “mother” is just another meat body she uses at the same time (at least occasionally?) as her main meat body for the sake of keeping up the daughter facade. so it’s possible, at least for an AI, to control at least two bodies at once. if rome is a meat robot after some fashion, maybe he could somehow be controlled? or allow someone to experience things through him at least? good’s dealt with plenty of shit to cause anyone to just shutdown, but maybe he’s not being as un-attached as it appears? maybe evil mother can see and feel what good’s original body/mind is up to - but hitching a ride in someone else’s might be a different story. if rome is aro/ace that could tie in - good doesn’t strike me as a voyeurism kinda guy... or maybe he just lucked out, idk.

dang this one feels like i’m really grasping for straws, why’d rome have to stay my favorite and somehow get next to no background yet, dang.

“aiguille” means “needle” in french. “de fil en aiguille” is a french saying, literally translates to “from thread to needle” but basically means “little by little” or “one thing leading to another” - moving from one thing to another, step by step. curious, what with all the thread-like, highly story-significant worms all over the place. plus, dylan’s particular specialty of using her worms like thread to “sew” people up; dylan, who was raised/morphed(?) to have such specialized skills either by or influenced by antony aiguille. and there’s the part where the aiguilles likely had a huge part to play in the initial near-extinction of the mandragora worms...

also, “anguille” means “eel” in french and for the life of me i can’t stop writing that instead of aiguille ffs.

also also, speaking of mandragora worms - crimson’s a human/mandragora hybrid (mandragora born in a human body), born with the usual 2 mandragora eyes and then a third, freak defective heart. king canary’s also a hybrid, except a hydragora/mandragora one(however that works). i’m guessing the mandragora part won out, since that’s how it usually seems to go between the two species, but what does that mean exactly?

did/does canary have 3 hearts - 2 mandra, 1 hydra? if so, how does antony’s becoming a sort’ve heart when he “fused” with canary play into it all?

some heart was used to fuel the creation of that meat pod and celadon (evident from that ugly turnip-ish looking thing amnesia!king pulled out of her finger) but which one was it?

my guess? which i suppose all of this is but still? it was the hydragora one. afterall it’s the hydragora worm kings that have the seeds, and king canary - if they (or evil mother as them) really did ever eat their father’s corpse - would be the sole worm in charge of the hekatonkheires (since they were made from one of his father’s seeds i think). it’d only make sense for any “seed information” to be stored in the corresponding species’ heart.

and it’d make everything waaaay easier for celadon if one of her bodies could control the main course of her eventual feast.

aeschylus has been “reborn” as a mandragora weed. weeds feed on worms, and he has amnesia to an extent - is he gonna be driven to kill worms now? did the weed do it’s job and make him forget about being a worm, or will he have some hang-ups about it? he remembers/is connected somehow with canary still... is that due to being knighted by king canary (who was actually evil mother att but w/e)?

if/when rome isn’t so ignorant about basically everything and more chill around non-humans - will he and aeschylus get along because yay killing worms? rome vaguely resembles leadman physically, and is kinda similarly empathetic - would aeschylus retain memories of him enough for that to affect how he sees rome? would being familiar with amnesia!king (who he'd remember because canary) give rome a leg up in case aeschylus remembers who killed his worm self?

aeschylus likely gets his name from an ancient greek actor that’s considered the father of tragedy - yay google for checking my spelling. anyway no one should be surprised when 2.0 weedman inevitably dies horribly. we all know kos enjoys doing it, lets not deny him that.

king canary’s body only has 8 seeds left according to antony. one was used to turn him into a worm heart-ish thing. evil mother likely used the other missing seed to create the mandragora weeds - which she planted inside aeschylus at some point while still piloting king canary’s body.

evil mother’s organization wants to wipe out humanity and is primarily comprised of hekatonkheires and hydragora worms - the worms that weeds eat. she also wanted almost desperately to revive her species. maybe having all those hydragoras in one place so to speak wasn’t simply utilizing a strong species...

could the disease she gave leadman be a sort of prototype of the weed? hm...

antony and dylan were doing experiments on worms, one of which was eventually aeschylus, the weed-bearing worm. one of those worms, licky, is/ends up being a weed. all/most of those worms had/have strange coloration for just common worms. antony claims he was close to curing aeschylus. were antony and dylan specifically experimenting with splicing/merging/whatever mandragora weeds with hydragora worms?

licky has some interesting patterns on their arms - kinda like a b-type hekaton’s. HMM.... more experimenting on antony’s part, or just an interesting subject? dylan couldn’t have been too involved, after all she didn’t know about hekatons.

it’s weird that king canary was alive but seemingly brain-dead before eating antony. could that be from worm/weed experimenting? could that explain king’s amnesia, that she was basically going through what we saw aeschylus 2.0 go through? ehh, feels like grasping at straws again...

and, to end on a different note...

mr. rotten’s original creator was randall, but the little guy didn’t get a franchise until relatively recent - like, 30ish(?) years before the present., about when fork was baby-kid age i think. so, who made mr. rotten into the franchise that it is?

my guess is rome and antony’s parent(s), or the third, unnamed aiguille brother. i could’ve sworn i remember seeing somewhere that rome was the eldest brother and antony was the youngest, leaving the unknown one to be the middlest brother, but i can’t find that info anywhere and i don’t feel like checking again.

anyway, my hope is that the unnamed third brother hasn’t shown up yet because he’s on wiggle world - being the guy in charge, or at least managing things. also he’s fat, like rembrandt. also maybe the least likely personality to be in charge of/ work at an amusement park moon based on a kid’s cartoon because he’s a no-nonsense, no-fun, business-minded butthead.

this is based on nothing but antony looking kinda like randall, rome’s weird, and there’s another bro that could look like rembrandt. except the last part, that’s just me being tickled by the irony of that character.

oh also, rembrandt - co-creator of the crosshatch unit, the most advanced AI ever, with a rather unique personality thanks to randall which rembrandt wasn’t too happy with. rock’s robot children/lackeys are known as rembots. where do the aiguilles fall on the HEEL/THUMB dichotomy, was that ever stated? hmm...

okay now i’m done, thanks for reading. if you didn’t, well

tl;dr - i think to much about a silly webcomic about worms.