Kingdom Hearts III Growing Up With A Series That Isn't Growing Up With Me

Source: https://gamerant.com/kingdom-hearts-3-where-to-find-constellations/

Kingdom Hearts is a video game franchise that I hold very dear to my heart. One of my earliest gaming memories comes from booting up the first game in the series for the very first time on my PS2 back in 2004. It was a rental copy from a local drug store, and I remember having my parents pay to rent it out multiple times until they finally gave in and purchased it for me. Vividly I can recall the countless hours I spent stuck trying to find all of the raft materials on Destiny Island. When it was time for our protagonist Sora to leave the island and explore the other worlds out there in the game, I was addicted. I can still recall school day mornings where I'd wake up two hours early to the smell of a burning iron and a hot pot of coffee in the kitchen. I'd quietly slink out of my bed, boot up my small 20" TV and PS2, and slowly begin plugging away at the game.

Those are probably some of my fondest memories from childhood; and those memories continued with each successor in the franchise. From the GBA spinoff Chain of Memories to the inevitable sequel to the myriad of spinoffs that came out on every portable device at the time, I was hooked to this series. Now while as a kid I never quite had a full grasp on the full comprehensive tale to Kingdom Hearts, I understood Sora's core goals and the overarching theme - to stop darkness from spreading and reunite everyone along the way.

It's only in hindsight that I now see all of the acts of subterfuge and betrayal going on within Organization XII, Xehanort's various methods to achieve his mission, and how all of the allies to Sora (e.g. Roxas, Aqua, Ventus, etc.) play into the series. The Disney worlds were never really my driving goal for playing this series, unlike how I feel most fans of the series see it. Utilization of various properties like Hercules and The Nightmare Before Christmas just felt like the icing on top. For me, I just wanted to see Sora's journey all the way through to the end - something that I feel like I've been waiting on for over a decade now. I can still remember all the sleepless nights I spent reading fanfiction until the crack of dawn because I was desperate for a proper conclusion. And then when I wasn't reading, I was dreaming up theories in my head on what would happen - how Sora would finally best Xehanort and finally reunite with his friends once more.  

To say that I was excited when my copy of Kingdom Hearts III arrived a day earlier than anticipated would be an understatement. Even from the moment the start menu makes it slow crawl to fully visualize itself I could feel the tears start to swell around my eyes. The game I had so long waited for was finally in my console, begging me to play. Spoilers will follow.

It's been about five days since I started playing the game, and just earlier I had the opportunity to finish it - epilogue and secret ending and all. And it kind of hurts that I don't really know how to feel about the game as a whole. Let's start off by saying that the game has a lot of problems. I don't think that's too shocking of a proclamation to make; most of the entries in the franchise have issues. Whether that be how painful some of the dialogue can be to how the story can be hard to follow, each game has something that just could be a lot better. Some of the spin offs, such as Re:Coded and 358/2 Days, have even worse issues than others. It's interesting to say that Kingdom Hearts III alleviates a lot of these past grievances, but ultimately ends up creating new ones as a result. 

One of my biggest gripes with past games involved the design of most worlds. While each one had their own unique feel and charm, they were all pretty empty and devoid of life. Kingdom Hearts III rectifies a lot of these problems. Each Disney world is incredibly expansive. Whereas most worlds in past games where split up by maybe 10-12 different "zones", in Kingdom Hearts III you'll get maybe 2-3 zones at most with each one being incredibly large and vertical. Some of these worlds are incredibly well designed. I'd say that the two standout examples from this game would be Toy Box and the Caribbean. These worlds might as well be miniature games inside this because of all the detail that it feels was put into them. However, some of these worlds feel very vast, yet empty. Arendelle and Corona are probably the best examples of this as you'll find yourself traversing through snowy fields in the former and lush green forests in the latter, yet feel like you're just slogging along because of how big they are with little in them. Corona at least has the saving grace of being able to visit a piece of the kingdom - something that Arendelle doesn't even attempt to pull off unfortunately.

Another big issue with these Disney worlds are the stories and characters within each one. I never really had this issue in past games, but for Kingdom Hearts III, it felt like the developer's focus on telling cohesive stories in each world was extremely lacking this time around. Corona's world literally transcribes the story of Tangled into Kingdom Hearts, beat for beat. Now this would be perfectly okay had it not been for the fact that several plot points are just missing, so if you've never seen the movie you miss out on a lot of context. The same goes for Arendelle and the Caribbean, and it kind of sucks some of the enjoyment out of these worlds because of it. And it's not like the worlds in this game are quick to complete; the average time I spent in each one was around two hours. I greatly preferred how Kingdom Hearts II handled splitting a world up into two parts. It made each world feel more complete in terms of their story, and I felt more connected to the characters also. There's a scene towards the end of Toy Box where Buzz and Woody decide to stay where they are and not search for Andy so they could continue to spend time with Sora. This is the end of the level though, and the only time I went back was to look for collectibles. That line would have made more sense if they had continued onward to a second part and involved more story. But it doesn't, so it just falls flat.

It also doesn't help that even though dialogue appears improved overall on previous entries, there's still some rough delivery from various voice actors. Xehanort's voice specifically always feels very wooden and out of place, which is surprising due to being voiced by Rutger Hauer. It also doesn't help that a lot of the time during cutscenes there will be awkward pauses in lines of dialogue that last anywhere from 2-5 seconds too long. That might not seem like a major deal, but when you're watching cutscene after cutscene (which you will do a lot of in this game) it only becomes more evident.

I also feel that a couple of combat mechanics are pretty poorly implemented. Kingdom Hearts III takes various mechanics from past mechanics, altering them to make them more efficient while also adding two notable mechanics: Shotlock and Attractions. Shotlock is an interesting new feature that involves you holding R1 and aiming at a target and then pressing a button to unleash an attack that varies in damage depending on how long you were locked on to a target for. However it feels a little clunky to use and just ultimately feels a little useless when you also have Attractions at your disposal. These are really cool in that they're essentially Disney rides recreated in the game to be used as an attack. 

The problem with these though is that you can obtain them way too often through combat. It really hinders any sort of nuance there is to battling when I can so easily utilize Attractions and almost always wipe every enemy in the nearby vicinity. I found myself actively not using them even when I could because I wanted to have a little more challenge. Of course, series staples like Links and Forms return, and for the most part those work exceedingly well. I really enjoy that you are able to have three different Forms available to you in battle. It really allows you to have a lot more flexibility in how you go about defeating bosses and encourages you to experiment with your playstyle without being too worried about making wrong choices on your loadout.

Now I mention all these negative aspects to the game, but there are some things that I'm so surprised they managed to get right. The primary overarching story to Kingdom Hearts for instance actually managed be one of the strongest aspects to the game, almost as if Square Enix decided to flip their priorities this time around and it shows. The first two thirds of the game is very heavy in Disney story, while the final third hits you hard with all of the story and lore of Kingdom Hearts. Like, I almost literally mean that it hits you because Tetsuya Nomura and team spend the last 4-6 hours of your time weaving in every single character and plot point from every single game in the series (including the mobile game) to finalize this story. It's so steeped in lore, that it almost feels at odds with the Disney aspect of the game.

Despite that however, the end of this "Xehanort Saga" (as Tetsuya Nomura describes it) ends with a bang. I honestly cannot think of a more well done ending in a video game before. Literally whatever you could think of that you'd want to happen in this ending happens, from characters returning and interacting with each other to spectacular boss battles to even everyone just dying at one point. That may sound really messy, but all of these points are important to tie it all together. It really feels like there was a lot of care trying to tie this story up, which I really have to commend the team for doing. For fans of the series, it really hits a soft spot in you when you see these characters you've spent so much time with finally reach some sort of resolution, and it's hard not to feel at least a little satisfied by the time you roll credits.

If you were just coming to this series though, all of this is going to fall on deaf ears once you reach it. I'd say that most of the game is newcomer/casual player-friendly, but that last act is made only for the hardest of hard core. And if you are new to the series, or have only played the mainline entries - I'm so sorry for what you're going to have to sit through.

Kingdom Hearts III does not try to get you fully up to speed on who every character is and what all the lore tucked away in its various spin-offs entails. It feels very diametrically opposed to how earlier in the game you'll have various characters spoon-feeding the audience on how certain aspects of the universe work, such as Xehanort and his 13 vessels. Then you'll get sequences where four members of Organization XIII are being talked about having significant importance, but what you won't be told is that in the mobile game Union Cross it's properly explained that the human version of these characters were once Keyblade wielders and major parts of that game.

It's so odd what the team at Square Enix thought was important to really understand and what wasn't. It creates this game that is aiming for someone new to the series while harkening back to its core base without ever melding those two audience goals cohesively in game. I suppose you could fault that more on just the sheer amount of history that has been told through this entire franchise, but there had to have been a better way to accomplish what they were setting out to do.

It's very weird to be writing this article that's ultimately creating a more negative impression of the game than I even meant to give it, but there are just so many things that are done in weird ways that just make me feel like Kingdom Hearts is going through a lot of growing pains. It's this gorgeous games that at times can rival the qualities of the films it tries to imitate yet falls far behind the gameplay and story standards of what other franchises and titles have managed to do in Kingdom Hearts' 13 year long absence on the core console platform. You can start hitting up an awesome combo in battle that results in you unleashing this awesome wave of attacks that can be flowing with beauty and grace at times only to be stifled by oddly written dialogue, off putting performances, barren levels, and stories that contain weird plot-holes or "gotcha" moments.

It's been a 13 years since Kingdom Hearts II and 7 since the last spin-off was released. In that time frame I've graduated from both High School and College. I've been through several jobs, been in various relationships, and consumed thousands of films and video games. All this time, I've continued to learn and grow emotionally, empathetically, physically, and intellectually. To play through this game and still be controlling the teenage boy that continues to get incredibly confused at what is going on at any particular time slowly became harder and harder to do as I played.

Having seen various great examples of subtle story-telling in all types of entertainment over the years to now play through this where characters spell out the themes and messaging feels so dissonant. Hell, another series I and many others grew up with was Harry Potter, and by the end of that franchise I genuinely felt like both Harry and I had grown together as people by Deathly Hallows' end.

Playing Kingdom Hearts III was like hanging out with a best friend I hadn't seen since grade school. While I slowly began to adapt to adult life, he just continued to stay at home playing with the same toys he's had since then. Just like that friend, I hope that in the next few years I can see Kingdom Hearts actually mature and grow and match me at least on some similar ground.

Source: https://images.khinsider.com/KINGDOM%20HEARTS%20III/Artwork/Characters/Sora%20Throne.png

Until then, I'll just keep on creating theories on what the ending to this game means for the future of the series and let them flow into my dreams. I'll let fanfiction consume occupy my time and get lost in the myriad sequels that others create. And once the next entry in the series releases I hope that it'll meet the expectations of 22 year old me, much like how Kingdom Hearts III met the expectations of 10 year old me back in 2006.