Kingdom Hearts 3

Release: January 2019
Genre: Action, Platformer, JRPG
Developer/Publisher: Square Enix
Gameplay Stats: 60 hours, Proud mode

I have been looking forward to this game since I finished Kingdom Hearts 2 in High School! Supposed to be the stunning conclusion of the series.

Visuals: This game looks really nice! The graphic fidelity changes to match whichever world you happen to be in. The clever use of filters in the game mean that Sora looks real in Pirates of the Caribbean and animated in Olympus. The action and the effects in the game look great, it all comes out smoothly and looks the same. The enemies are largely ones we've seen before but they all look great brought to the new engine/platform. I was particularly impressed by how much goes on at the same time on the screen. The limit of enemies seems to be very high plus Sora and 2-4 friendly AIs. I don't recall seeing a frame drop. The Disney attractions all look fantastic in action and seem to suit the respective areas perfectly well. It was a little hard to differentiate some areas where you can and cannot go in the later zones. I think that is more because of the crazy amount of mobility that you get as a player and that's probably hard to program around.

Audio: The music here is good! The soundtracks are definitely reminiscent of the Disney movies being referenced. There are definitely some songs that are straight up lifted from the movies, but the rest could be new or old, I'm not certain. The voice acting is fine, with a mix of original and recast voices. Some of the new voices are in an uncanny valley between being familiar and strange. I looked up voice actors more than I ever have in a game. The sound effects were a bit repetitive, but I think that's normal for a game like this. The sound effects seem to change based on which weapon you have equipped and I thought that was a nice touch. As a closing thought, Haley Joel Osment is a middle aged man now and it's weird to hear him voicing the ever pubescent Sora.

Plot: To be honest, I shouldn't have ad expectations going into it. I really think this is the only part where I felt let down at all. Maybe it's a factor of me growing up, but I feel like gaming has been maturing recently. Game design is becoming more mature and so are a lot of the themes. Kingdom Hearts is just as trope filled as ever, with everything boiling down to hearts, light/darkness, and friendship. It's still a whole lot of nonsense, I'm not sure why I was hoping for something else to be entirely honest. The game is about as coherent as the rest of the series. As a spoiler, I would like to say that this game doesn't bring the closure that I'd hoped it would. It's hard to say what the next game(s) will look like, but I suspect that they will come.

Gameplay: I'm not too sure what to say here. The game plays well! Like, really well. They have learned a lot from the previous games about how Sora should control and it shows here. This was all gravy.

Overall, I was a little disappointed in the plot, but I know I shouldn't be. It's another entry in a franchise that I kind of grew up with? I was hoping it would change with its audience, but I guess it being consistent is also something to praise. I wish there was more post game content and a Critical difficulty mode! I guess that's coming later in the form of DLC however, so I'm sure I'll revisit the entire game when that does happen. [8.5/10]