Kingdom Hearts III- I finished this last monday (2/11 for my own purposes), but due to uh post-release patches because modern development practices I had to eat ~half my monthly wifi data getting the proper endings installed so I haven't had a keyboard to do this justice.
In that time I've been trying to parse out how someone would like the series and not love this game, because it seems like a completely nonsensical position, and indeed a lot of the complaints feel... completely off? Like a common one is that the Disney worlds feel pointless and um... I hate to break it to some people but that's always been true, and indeed I felt like the KHIII world set was a lot more considered and contributed more thematic heft than any previous game.
Now that said the more nuanced take of "I didn't like that half the worlds recreated shot-for-shot scenes from the source movies instead of making new spins" which... I will grant you Frozen all day, but... pretty much just Frozen? Let It Go didn't add much to the game, but replaying Disney.txt from Tangled? Nah, that scans.
And I think you can tell Pixar's liaisons were really into this because Monsters and Toy Story worlds were aces.
I should actually go more into how the series has used world selection, because I've had Thoughts, but basically I think only Pirates really feels extraneous? It does go with Nomura's stated theme of "Resolution"... but not with the actual throughline of the plot (belief/love giving things life and making impossible things possible, although even Pirates starts in Davy Jones' Locker...) nor with Sora's character journey (KH1's worlds are typically about, or the original movies were about, the joy of exploring new worlds. KH2's were largely about coming into your own and rising to the occasion to be a hero. KH3... is about being a hero and inspiring others to meet your example.)
And while you can certainly say that Sora's always had a clear character and did a Campbell journey in KH1, KH3 has a handful of scenes that are the first time I felt like he really reckoned with himself and his own identity. Like... I don't want to go into tiny text here, but there's a moment Riku says "You don't really believe that". And that entire scene, and Sora's growth from it, is probably the biggest moment he's had in the franchise I think, with POSSIBLY the exception of jabbing out his heart in KH1.
But honestly I will grant people one thing: there is a HARD dividing line between Disney Fun Times and The Real Plot in this game, in a much more unbalanced way than previous entries. Like the plotty plot during most of those is almost 50% "setting up KH4" stuff that I'm ignoring for purposes of this writeup, and the rest is often summation/setup for the plot mechanics that will go into the emotional beats in the end.
But thematically and emotionally it always scans. This game is about resolution in the sense that it's bringing everything down to exactly one dangling thread of what came before Sora's fate and finishing off the rest.
So at last here's the important part.
After softening you up with the above-mentioned "You don't really believe that" and Sora really pulling it off, the entire rest of the game is the most finely crafted emotional whiplash I have ever seen and I adore it. The rest of the game from that point is using complete awesome to soften you up for melancholy, melancholy to set you up for reclaimed identities, reclaimed identities to set you up for the sort of brilliantly obvious retcons that just WORK emotionally even if maybe don't question them too long, followed by a one-two punch of the actual 'resolution' the entire game was building up to. The reunion of the Trios. "One day, I will make this right." "Many people made my return possible" It's okay to cry: you will not be erased.
Even as Nomura gonna Nomura with how absurd some of the twists and turns getting to those points were (Like fuck, the mechanics of the immediate before and after of the place where hearts return is nonsense), that's the point. I mean yeah there's a final boss after that. But those were the point.
Also not gonna lie these slightly-toned-down final boss tag teams, as a more-or-less bosh rush to end out the game is just... *chef kiss*
Which also is the only other thing worth saying: I want every. SINGLE. Kingdom Hearts game from now until time stops to give me Remy. You can cut the cooking minigames if you want, just make him and Scrooge a travelling crew. It's fine. It's all fine.
For a long time I've sorta punted on thinking about the original Kingdom Hearts. While I think I do like it more than KH2 in a vacuum, it's aged very badly mechanically and a lot of why I ranked it among my absolute favorites is because it most distilled the essence of why I loved this series, the precise way it mixed nonsense, cheese, Disney, Square, and everything else. KHIII, to my everlasting surprised, has at last captured all of it in a smoother, more emotive, and more lasting way. So... yeah. Hello #3.
10/10
