Finally, after a decade of waiting! Kingdom Hearts III review!

If I was to describe the wait for Kingdom Hearts III using a single image, you wanna know what image I would use?

And I chose this image because not only is it funny (if you don't know the context), but it captures the feeling of waiting over a decade just for this one game. Seriously, Kingdom Hearts III was announced 13 years ago and it released back in January, 2019

For those of you not in the know, Kingdom Hearts is a franchise of action-RPGs that also double as a crossover between the entire Disney Animated Canon, and... Final Fantasy? Kind of a weird combination, but sure, let's roll with it. The basic premise of this series is that in a shared multiverse that makes the MCU seem tiny in comparison, A young boy named Sora must travel the cosmos, protect everybody from the forces of darkness, meet new friends along the way, and eat ice cream. Lots and lots of ice cream. The games are beloved by many for being a Disney video game that is actually really good (since video game adaptations of movies, and vice versa, have gained a reputation for being lazy, poorly made cash-grabs that don't do the source material justice). The games are also famous for having an elaborate, overarching, and very difficult to explain story, and Kingdom Hearts III is meant to be somewhat of a grand finale. I say "somewhat" because Tetsuya Nomura, the creator and director of Kingdom Hearts, announced ahead of time that although this game will (try to) tie up the loose threads of the plot and conclude the Xehanort Arc (yes, Kingdom Hearts uses anime arcs in it's storytelling), that it will not be the last game in the franchise. It will just be the last game to have Xehanort as a major antagonist.

Oh, yeah, not everyone's played a Kingdom Hearts game before. Is this game newcomer friendly? Not at all. It kind of assumes you've played every single game before it, including some really obscure spin-off titles, and while there is a series of videos you can watch from the main menu that recaps the events of the games, said videos are abridged and as such leave out some surprisingly important details. Seriously, the numerous videos on YouTube that summarize the franchise do a better job than the game itself. But just so everyone's on the same page, I'll try to summarize the entire franchise myself. So strap in, grab your sea-salt ice cream, and prepare to get all this stuff memorized, because there is a lot you need to know going into this game (if you want to enjoy the story. I know there are some folks that don't care about the story at all and only play the games because it's a Disney crossover).

In the beginning, there were thousands of powerful heroes known as the Keyblade wielders, who can use, you guessed it, Keyblades. Keyblades are magical weapons with arcane properties, and each one is personalized to it's owner. One day they went to war with each other over two things, the first (and simpler to explain) being the X-blade. The X-blade is, as the name suggests, one of the most powerful weapons in the Kingdom Hearts universe. The other thing they warred over is the titular Kingdom Hearts. Now I'm not too sure what Kingdom Hearts is supposed to be, because in some games it's treated as a wish-granting item but in other games it's a beautiful Garden of Eden style paradise (and in some games it's somehow both of these at once!), but for now just know that Kingdom Hearts is really good and everyone wants it. After the Keyblade wielders almost wiped themselves out, the survivors began rebuilding their society. One day, a rogue Keyblade wielder known as Xehanort decides that he wants to plunge the universe in darkness so he can recreate both the X-blade and Kingdom Hearts itself. Naturally, no one is okay with this. So after a few failed attempts to do this, Xehanort, knowing his old age is slowing him down and worried he might kick the bucket before his plans come to fruition, possesses a younger Keyblade wielder named Terra, traps Terra's best friend, Aqua, in what can best be described as a purgatory, splits another Keyblade wielder (named Ventus) in half (spiritually, not literally), puts the good half of Ventus in a coma, makes the evil half of Ventus (calling itself Vanitas) his right hand man, and basically clones himself as part of a newer, and infinitely more complicated plan to recreate the X-blade and summon Kingdom Hearts.

A few years later, Sora (alongside childhood friend/rival Riku) gains the ability to use a Keyblade. Of course Sora doesn't need it right now, since he's just a humble islander kid looking for a good adventure, but then darkness happens, Riku immediately decides that using dark magic is cool and becomes evil. So Sora teams up with Donald Duck and Goofy (yes, the same ones from the Mickey Mouse cartoons) to go see if they can make Riku a good guy again. And also rescue Sora's girlfriend, Kairi, who got kidnapped while Riku was being all, "The power of the DARKNESS makes me cool and edgy! How can it be a bad thing!?". But it turns out Riku was being possessed by Ansem (who is one of Xehanort's clones) the whole time, so he really wasn't evil to begin with. Nevertheless, Sora and friends beat the crab-cakes out of Ansem, save the multiverse from impending doom, and live happily ever after. Well, almost.

This screenshot is from Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance,
in case you're wondering about the lower-quality models.

You see, both Riku and Mickey Mouse (who is a Keyblade wielder in this universe, because of course he is) have gone missing in action, so Sora, Donald, and Goofy pack their things and travel the cosmos again to see if they can find and/or rescue them. Only problem is that they get sidetracked by a dude in a mysterious black coat (Matrix style, baby!) who gives them ominous warnings about losing memories to the darkness. Which results in Sora and friends finding a castle that, guess what, slowly erases your memories. The higher up the castle you climb, the more memories are erased. Only Sora gets some weird side effects. Namely all his memories of Kairi get replaced by a mysterious blonde girl named Namine. Later on it's revealed that Namine herself is the one erasing everybody's memories and because she is like, totally into Sora, rewrote his memories so she can do the real-life equivalent of a self-insert fanfiction. Eventually she realizes that shipping herself with Sora is creepy, and puts Sora into a coma so she can repair the damage she caused to Sora's mind. 

The whole time this is happening a clone of Sora, named Roxas, works as an errand boy for Organization XIII, which is led by Xemnas (the other Xehanort clone). Eventually Roxas discovers that life in the Organization kind of sucks, so he plots to go rogue with his best friends Axel and Xion. But then Xion dies and everyone cried because it was the single saddest moment in the entire franchise. So Roxas breaks free from the Organization and fuses with Sora, making him more powerful, but also robbing Roxas of a tangible form, so his soul is placed inside of Sora's soul until they find a way to give him a new body.

Then Mickey Mouse's mentor, Yen Sid (that's literally just Disney spelled backwards!) reveals that the time is soon approaching for a second Keyblade War, and that Sora, Riku, and Mickey need to recruit as many not-evil Keyblade wielders as possible. Oh, and Xehanort's plan is at last fully revealed and it turns out that the only reason Organization XIII exists is that each member is basically a walking Horcrux for Xehanort himself. Except for Roxas and Axel, because they left the Organization before Xehanort put a piece of his soul in them. Oh, speaking of Axel, his real name is Lea, and he's also one of the new Keyblade wielders. And so is Kairi. So Yen Sid has Merlin (from Sword & The Stone) send Kairi and Axel/Lea to an alternate dimension to go practice their Keyblade powers in peace so that when the final battle comes they won't be dead weight (hopefully).

And that brings us to Kingdom Hearts III. And even the summary I gave didn't cover every minor detail in the lore. Seriously, this jigsaw-puzzle of a story can get so overwhelmingly deep with background lore that it makes the storyline of Five Nights at Freddy's seem straightforward and simple in comparison. Anyway, picking up right after the events of the previous game, Sora got all but the absolute bare minimum of his powers stolen by Xehanort himself. So Yen Sid sends him off with Donald and Goofy for one last romp to see if they can master "The Power of Waking" or, at the very least, restore all of Sora's previous abilities. In other words, his power level got reset to level one (again) and this time there's a story-related justification for his level not carrying over between games. So Sora, Donald, and Goofy travel the cosmos, meeting up with old friends and teaming up with new Disney characters along the way.

In typical Kingdom Hearts fashion, the Disney worlds are self-contained, each one having a story arc of its own. Some of the worlds are just word-for-word recreations of famous Disney movies, while others are more akin to indirect sequels, having completely original stories featuring beloved childhood icons such as Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Sully, Mike, and Captain Jack Sparrow. The story writing for Kingdom Hearts III's Disney Worlds tends to vary in quality. You have great worlds such as the Toy Story world, where Sora and friends meet up with the toys after Andy has gone missing, which spirals into a delightful trip to a very well designed toy store area (that's fully explorable!). Additionally, the whole world is filled with meta-jokes and some truly great gags, such as Rex the Dinosaur mistaking Sora for the main protagonist of a fictional in-universe video game that is obviously a parody of the sadly cancelled Final Fantasy Versus XIII, and then lamenting the fact that he's stuck on a boss battle against Bahamut (a main-stay Final Fantasy character usually serving as a brutally difficult bonus boss). It gets even better when Buzz Lightyear tells Sora to his face that Kingdom Hearts magic makes no sense. But realistically, shouldn't Woody be the one initially distrustful of Sora and his friends? They could have easily done a throwback to the very first Toy Story by having Sora attempt to explain the whole situation to the toys only for Woody to yell "You. Are! A TOY!". After all, Kingdom Hearts lore isn't that different from the made-up fantasy meant to hype up Buzz's toyline.

But then you have really bad worlds such as the Frozen world. In this world, Sora and friends don't get to do much, as the majority of the world is just Sora and Friends climbing up a snowy mountain, getting knocked off once they reach the top, and having to repeat the process twice. Case in point, Sora, Donald, and Goofy only get to directly interact with Elsa, who is literally the main character of Frozen, exactly one time during the world's story arc. The rest of the time is spent with Sora and friends being awkwardly placed bystanders just passively watching the events of the original film unfold. Which leads into the weirdest scene in the game. At one point, Elsa sings her signature song, Let It Go. And no, the song is not just part of the background music. Nor does she sing just a portion of the song. The entire sequence, from the song itself to Elsa's body movements to even the exact way the snowflakes around her fall, was recreated frame-for-frame, in the Kingdom Hearts in-game engine, with the only difference being that Sora and his friends are watching Elsa do her thing from a distance. The whole thing was frankly bizarre, and while that cutscene is unironically one of the best animated cutscenes in any Kingdom Hearts game, it begs the question.

Why? What compelled Nomura's team to recreate the ENTIRE SEQUENCE down to the smallest detail? It's become a well-known fact that Disney put some stricter guidelines on what Nomura's team can and cannot do with the Disney characters this time around (compared to Kingdom Hearts I and II, where they were allowed to do pretty much whatever they wanted, within reason), and I have a feeling the janky nature of this world specifically is a side-effect of those stricter guidelines. This isn't the only issue with this world, however. Throughout the world Larxene (one of the Organization XIII members) shows up and keeps an eye on Elsa. After all, Elsa's ice magic is on a far greater scale than any other magic user, save for Xehanort himself. At one point Larxene traps Sora, Donald, and Goofy inside a labyrinth made of ice. I have a lot of issues with this. First of all, Larxene has never once used ice magic herself (Larxene's thing is that she can control any form of electricity), so how is she able to construct such an elaborate maze all of a sudden? Second of all, assuming that the maze was never intended to be created by Elsa (the architecture in said maze resembles that seen in her ice palace, hence the theory that Elsa was going to be more antagonistic in a earlier version of the script), and if you really needed to have an Organization member construct the maze, why not have Luxord do it? He was the go-to ice user for this franchise since the Organization was introduced! And it's not like Luxord isn't in this game, he's here along with the rest of the Organization. The labyrinth is filled with so much inconsistency it gives the impression that it was thrown together later in development to pad out what would otherwise be a really short world. Then again, all my criticism of the Frozen world may be biased, since I will admit that I wasn't the biggest fan of the film. Don't get me wrong, it had some great ideas, a fantastic presentation, and decent voice acting, but the story writing left something to be desired, at least for me. So take anything I say about Frozen with a grain of salt.

The general consensus I've noticed amongst game reviews is that the worlds with wholly original story arcs are universally better than the ones that just recreate the plot of the original film, but even among the worlds that don't deviate much from the source material tend to vary in quality. Just as how the Frozen world was a janky mess, the Tangled world was actually pretty well put together, all things considered. It does have some problems, namely, Flynn Rider and Rapunzel's character development (and the reveal of Flynn's real name!) happen off-screen, resulting in a lot of confusion for people who haven't watched Tangled (and if you haven't you should, it's actually really good). Plus, Marluxia shows up in this world, but doesn't really do much, which is a shame because Marluxia is one of my personal favorite Kingdom Hearts villains. What makes this worse is how Marluxia overshadows Mother Gothel (the main antagonist of Tangled), and seems to strike a deal with her, and yet that plot point never comes to fruition. But these issues are balanced out by the fact that Sora actually gets to consistently interact with Flynn and Rapunzel, which is part of the appeal of the franchise in the first place.

But let's talk about my favorite world in the entire game, the Big Hero 6 world. It's an original story arc, so isn't retelling the plot of the original film. Sora not only gets to interact with the entire main cast of the film, which is obviously a good thing, but Baymax even joins as a temporary party member. The main antagonist of this world is Replica Riku, a sort-of clone of Riku (he's more akin to an android than an actual clone, think of him as the game's version of The Terminator). Unlike Larxene, whose mere involvement in the world causes a boatload of consistency issues, or Marluxia, who barely does anything beyond giving Sora some vague riddles to solve, Replica Riku actively antagonizes the cast, and while he doesn't get a boss battle, he does attack the heroes with darkness-infused versions of Hiro's microbots, culminating in a positively awesome two stage boss battle against Dark Baymax. Okay so spoilers for Big Hero 6, at the end of the film Baymax sacrifices himself to save Hiro from getting trapped in another universe. Upon finding that Baymax stashed his AI programming inside the one gauntlet that survived the final battle, Hiro builds a new Baymax and gives his robot friend a second chance at life. So in this game, Replica Riku, who can travel to any plane of existence at will, retrieves the original Baymax and reprograms it to be a death machine. I love this idea a lot, and I kind of wish if they made a sequel to Big Hero 6 that they will do something similar. Oh, and side note. Big Hero 6 was originally a Marvel property before Disney got their hands on the legal rights (seeing as how the Big Hero 6 comics were a total flop, Marvel was all too happy to get rid of the IP). Now get your tinfoil hats ready, because I have a conspiracy theory! The reason Nomura and his team included Big Hero 6 in this game's line-up is because they're testing the waters for when they inevitably bring in the Marvel Cinematic Universe into the Kingdom Hearts canon. Because let's be real, that would be amazing.

There's also a cooking minigame Sora can do with Remy from
Ratatouille

For those thinking this game would just be Sora visiting worlds based off of newer (and, if you're more cynical, profitable) Disney films, Sora also pays a visit to Hercules, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Twilight Town (an original world made just for Kingdom Hearts) also makes an appearance but frankly Twilight Town is the most forgettable area in the game. I also find the inclusion of Hercules to be kind of random, but then again, the Hercules world has been in every single Kingdom Hearts game ever since the original. I have a funny feeling that Hercules is Nomura's personal favorite Disney film, judging solely by how often it appears in the series. But at least this time rather than being a repetitive anime tournament arc like usual, the Hercules world serves as the game's prologue/tutorial. I probably should have talked about this world first, because it is the first world you visit no matter what, but I'm talking about the worlds in the order they pop into my head.

The endgame final confrontation with Xehanort and Organization XIII is also kind of a mixed bag. It does contain spoilers, so don't read this paragraph if spoilers bother you. After gathering up all seven of the good Keyblade wielders (known as the Champions of Light), Sora heads off to the Keyblade Graveyard to face off against Xehanort one last time. When he gets there, literally all seven of the Champions of Light get taken out by Terra, who is still being possessed after all this time. I have a few problems here already. First of all, most of the Champions of Light don't even try to defend themselves when Terra-Xehanort starts attacking. It gets especially bad when Aqua, who is canonically one of the most powerful fighters in all of Kingdom Hearts, literally just stands still and seemingly lets Terra-Xehanort strike her down. Now I understand what Nomura was trying to do. He was trying to make Terra-Xehanort seem unstoppable, so that when Sora and friends do overcome him it will be cathartic for the player. The problem was the execution had the side-effect of making the heroic cast seem completely incompetent in the face of an opponent even just a little bit more dangerous than a generic henchman. It kind of kills the suspension of disbelief. Now if they wanted to hype up how powerful the bad guys are, I feel like having every single member of Organization XIII appear at once and gang up on the Champions of Light would be more believable. It would also make the weird time travel sequence make more sense, since Sora would know that fighting the entire Organization at once is a bad idea and the Champions come up with a plan to separate the Organization, rather than Sora undoing the deaths of everyone only to go back to Terra-Xehanort with no new plan, and the only reason they didn't get bodied the second time was because of the timely arrival of The Lingering Will. Speaking of, The Lingering Will might just be the most under-utilized character in all of Kingdom Hearts. He's important to the lore, has an awesome design and even more awesome abilities, and they could have easily integrated him into the finale. Heck, when I first saw Lingering Will block Terra-Xehanort's attack and fend him off, I was hoping that he would be a last-minute party member, like how Riku joins your party just in time for the final boss battle in Kingdom Hearts II. But guess what? He doesn't. In fact, he disappears just as quickly as he arrives, and literally no one comments on or explains what his deal is. It's incredibly jarring, and gives the impression that Nomura and his team legitimately forgot about The Lingering Will and slapped him in at the last minute.

Before anyone asks, yes, Axel is my favorite character.

I have one more criticism of the story, and that's mostly how Axel/Lea and Kairi were handled. At the end of the previous game they were revealed to be Keyblade wielders, and that was cool, since it gives Axel the perfect excuse to fight alongside Sora (following his defection from the Organization) and (in theory) promotes Kairi from a fairly boring damsel in distress to a full on action girl, because let's be real, damsels in distress should not be a thing anymore. It's a dead cliche. My first problem with how these two were handled was how the story treats them like they are equally skilled. Despite Axel being much older than Kairi and having much more experience in battle. While the two of them did get their Keyblades at the same time, I feel like Axel's previous experiences with the Organization should make him at least a little bit more powerful. Seriously, if the game wanted me to believe that a 16-year-old girl who got kidnapped no less than three times in the series history and has never picked up a weapon of any kind in her life was on par with a 28-year-old who managed to fight Riku (who is canonically more powerful than Sora himself!) to a standstill even before he got a Keyblade, it did a very bad job at doing so. And going back to the issues I have with the final battle, Kairi only gets ONE fight sequence, and you wanna know what happens to her once it's over? She gets kidnapped. AGAIN. Even after going through all the character development, learning how to use a Keyblade, and being supposedly on par with the same dude that gave Sora and Riku a run for their money, she winds up being a damsel in distress. AGAIN. And keep in mind that Nomura (or at the very least, the marketing team) spent a good while hyping up how Kairi's not going to be the second coming of Princess Peach, and is going to be more proactive this time around. But reducing her to a damsel for the FOURTH TIME IN THE SERIES, while boasting about how she's going to become an action girl, that right there is a conscience choice. Nomura CHOSE to make Kairi get kidnapped again. Frankly this is my biggest problem with Kingdom Hearts III. Kairi deserved better treatment by now.  

That's not to say the final battle was completely terrible. In spite of these issues, it was still great, having a back-to-back boss rush with every single member of Organization XIII, plus a three-on-one battle with Ansem, Xemnas, AND Xehanort himself (or rather his younger self), and a heartfelt reunion between Roxas (who gets a new body so he can live separate from Sora), Axel, and Xion (who was brought back from the dead by Xehanort), and just before that Sora channels the power of FRIENDSHIP and summons the Keyblade of EVERY PREVIOUS KEYBLADE WIELDER, INCLUDING DECEASED ONES, and proceeds to tear straight through a massive hurricane of raw dark magic. Then again, part of why these great moments hold up is because of how fantastic the game plays.

So let's talk what many agree to be the best thing about Kingdom Hearts III. The gameplay, more specifically, the combat. It's similar to the combat system from Kingdom Hearts II (which was amazing, by the way), but with the best aspects of Birth by Sleep and Dream Drop Distance added on, in addition to brand new mechanics. Basically, you have a command menu in the bottom-left corner of the screen, you use the up and down buttons on the D-pad to cycle through your options, and you press the X button to confirm (I played the PS4 version, it's also available on Xbox One, just for you Microsoft loyalists). You press Circle to jump, and Square to block and/or dodge roll. Pressing Triangle (when prompted) lets you use Situation Commands, which only become available when certain criteria are met. For example, if your health drops low enough you will get a Situation Command to go into Rage Form, a transformation that turns Sora into a furious beast, complete with teleporting, lasers, claw swipes, and super fast combos. A brand new mechanic introduced in this game are Keyblade Transformations. If you rack up a combo with a specific Keyblade equipped, you can transform it into a completely different weapon with a Situation Command. Each Keyblade gets a unique transformation, and said transformations give Sora a brand-new moveset to work with. Some Keyblades even have a secondary transformation, triggered by getting a good combo after the initial transformation. For example, the Shooting Star Keyblade (pictured above) initially transforms into a pair of dual pistols, but getting a good combo here will let you transform the pistols into a rocket launcher. Another example, the Favorite Deputy Keyblade initially transforms into a hammer, and can transform again into a giant drill. And unlike previous games, you can equip three different Keyblades at once and switch between them on the fly (even in the middle of a combo!) using the left and right buttons on the D-pad. And if there's a specific Keyblade you like that seems outclassed stat-wise, you can upgrade each Keyblade to improve it's stats. Gone are the days of Sora dumping the Kingdom Key in favor of better Keyblades when the Kingdom Key is supposed to be his canon/personalized Keyblade. Thanks to the upgrade system, you can take on the game's final boss using just the Kingdom Key and not take five hours because of how pathetic the (un-upgraded) Kingdom Key's damage output is.

I only have two criticisms of Kingdom Hearts III's combat system. And that's in regards to the Attraction Commands and Summons. For Attraction Commands, a green reticle flashes over a random enemy in (almost) every battle. Hitting this specific enemy will grant you a Situation Command to summon, and I promise I'm not making this up, a magical, neon colored construct built in the image of some of the main rides at Disney World. Shameless selling out on Disney's part, or clever way to incorporate the theme park aspects of the Disney Animated Canon? You be the judge. Anyway, ignoring the (potentially) shameless self-promotion, I have two simple problems with Attraction Commands. The first, while they are cool to look at the first couple of times, they outstay their welcome fast, having an overly long cinematic when they are summoned, and basically bring your momentum to a screeching halt. The second is that they are hilariously overpowered, since not only do they have massive Area of Effect properties, potentially clearing out entire rooms of enemies in seconds, it's also literally impossible to die while they are active, since it's impossible for Sora's HP to drop below One HP while the Attraction Command is active. I grew to dislike the Attraction Commands, and eventually I went out of my way to not use them at all. At least if you play the game on Critical Mode (a difficulty setting released in a free update, it's even harder than the base game's Hard Mode) the game gives you the option of turning Attraction Commands off, so you don't have to worry about them anymore. But on a more serious note, this game's Summons are kind of janky. If you have a full MP gauge (the blue meter just above Sora's health), you can Summon a classic Disney character, ranging from Simba from Lion King, Stitch from Lilo & Stitch, and Wreck-it Ralph. However in my experience the only Summons worth using are Simba and the Dream Eaters (which come from Dream Drop Distance), since all the others have some kind of gimmick that makes their damage output very situation. For example, Stitch places downs electrical danger-zones, damaging anything within, but the danger-zones don't stunlock or cause knockback, meaning if the enemy can move, they can just walk right out of the danger-zone. Personally I would have rather have the Summons tweaked so they all feel powerful. After all, Summons are supposed to be the grandest, most over-the-top abilities in any given RPG, and for the Summons in this game to be so underwhelming makes them not really worth using in the first place. 

The exploration is fairly linear, with Sora and friends moving from one location to the next without much deviation. One criticism of the gameplay I have is that the in-game map is kind of mediocre, but most of the worlds are linear enough that the map wasn't really an issue. Frankly it only became a problem with the Toy Story world, given how massive it is to explore (especially once you get to the toy store), and the Tangled world, which, while more linear than the Toy Story world is still large, open-ended and surprisingly easy to get lost in. Ironically, I never had a problem with the Pirates of the Caribbean world, despite being by far the biggest and most nonlinear world in the game, because the map in that world (which is designed to resemble a sea-chart) is for some reason easier to read and understand than the in-game map used for the rest of the game. The Big Hero 6 world was also open ended, but it also had visual cues to let you know where you are supposed to go.

Some of the better Situation Commands involve Sora teaming
up with different Disney characters for Team Attacks

As for the presentation, this is by far the best Kingdom Hearts game in terms of graphics and art style. This game is so gorgeous that it makes the previous Kingdom Hearts games (which were good-looking games in their own right) look downright ugly. It's especially apparent since not only does the prologue include screenshots from previous games, but those same screenshots sometimes show up on the loading screen. From the lighting, to the texturing, to the area/ level design, everything is brimming with life and detail. Most of the Disney characters look like they walked straight out of their respective films and into the game, and even the cast of Pirates of the Caribbean, which is the only live-action film in this game's line-up, look decent. Definitely a step up from the uncanny valley they were all stuck in back in Kingdom Hearts III. On top of this, the various attack animations Sora has while in combat are stunning and make him look (and in some cases, feel) like a Dragon Ball Z character. I mean that in the best way possible.

The music in Kingdom Hearts has always been nothing short of amazing, and Kingdom Hearts III is no exception. We get a remix of You've Got a Friend in Me, He's a Pirate, the aforementioned Let it Go sequence (as much as I dislike Frozen I will admit that Let it Go is a decent song), some bombastic fanfare from Hercules (no vocal songs though), the Monsters Inc theme, and we even get a triumphant, orchestral remix of Simple and Clean, the original song that collectively blew our little kid minds back when the very first Kingdom Hearts game released. Plus, the opening theme of this game, Face My Fears, is, rather appropriately, a fantastic song that leaves a strong first impression and captures the essence and themes of the Kingdom Hearts series surprisingly well.

Oh hey, it's Vanitas

Kingdom Hearts III was a game that could have wound up becoming the second coming of The Last Guardian (another highly anticipated game with an absurdly long development time that released to mixed reception), but aside from some balancing issues involving Summons and Attractions (the former are too underpowered while the latter are too overpowered) and some story problems with the finale (and the Frozen world), it's still a solid game that's definitely worth playing for the gameplay and music alone. Plus my issues with the finale are mostly subjective and you are free to disagree with me. I publish posts on opinions, not facts. With that being said, I give Kingdom Hearts III 8 FRIENDSHIP powered Keyblades out of 10. Got it memorized?