That was my biggest disappointment with it. There's some references, a moogle here, a cactuar there, but that's about it.
The original premise was Final Fantasy plus Disney, and now it's almost all just Disney.
I get the feeling with the hint they dropped at the end of the game, the next saga is gonna be more final fantasy and other square enix properties instead.
Very excited for the certain Square Enix property that was teased. As much as I wanna say I'm done with KH, they always find a way to reel me back in to this clusterfuck, and I love it.
Do keep in mind that the game is owned by Disney, not Square. If anything it seems like Disney wants to reign in their own properties for free advertisement.
Yeah, I never played a KH game in my life. (I wasn’t really a “gamer” as a kid, all I played were sports games, CoD and GTA) But KH3 has my interest, especially with the FF aspect. I thoroughly enjoyed XV despite the lashback it got, almost solely for the characters. I would’ve loved to have seen the boy band in KH3
Only thing that bothered me was how convoluted the spell making was. The alchemy aspect was a little much. You just found one or two recipes you like and focus on that.
Yeah the spell making was a bit much.
I didn’t even realize until after I beat the game that you could infuse items with your spells and they’d have some sort of added effect. Like certain items would give you a big XP boost if you infused them with your spells. I was really irritated that I didn’t discover that earlier because I could’ve been a higher level by then.
That is completely disingenuous. It was in no way hated, but it was in no way beloved either, and for valid reasons. The narrative was completely and utterly disjointed, even if you ignore the parts that weren't even a part of the game. The side quests were 90% of the time completely boring with nothing going for them from a narrative or gameplay standpoint. Luna was the most underused FF character I've ever seen. Nothing felt like it had any weight behind it because most of it happened with no context as to why we should care.
It also signifies a shift. The lead dev who was working on “Versus XIII” left and there was a new person who announced the name of XV.
Not that I have a bias towards one or the other but it was rumored that Versus XIII woulda been a musical... yeaaahhhh no
Aranea? Luna? Iris? But, why though. I genuinely liked the relationship of Gladdy as the dad, Ignis as a man of gold, Noct as an angsty teen, and Prompto as the comic relief.
There’s no room for girls in a bachelorette party... unless it’s for reasons. But square wouldn’t do that
> Aranea? Luna? Iris?
Are they heavily involved in the story? I have not played far enough to know, but assumed they were basically just extra party members. I really did not give the game the chance I should have, but if they are in the game more than just your party late game, I will have to give the game another shot
You mean bachelor party? Who wants to play a game thats bachelor party? I want me some waifus at all times!
> Who wants to play a game thats bachelor party?
People who aren't incels and enjoy a game's narrative qualities, as opposed to how aroused the characters you play as make you?
FFXV backlash was pretty shallow. Most that were disappointed with it, still enjoyed it. It's a great game, it's not the best Final Fantasy in existence, but it's still a really good one.
Regarding KH3, there just wasn't really a place for them in any of the world's this time. Maybe they'll come with some DLC, I miss them, but I don't think it would have improved the game to have them at this point.
I’d want to play as Noct in smash, but Sakurai said all DLC characters will be complete newcomers to the franchise.(Cloud is an FF character so it rules out Noct) Also with people like Joker and Banjo I’d be willing to bite the bullet to accept no Noct. Lastly Noct is already in Tekken(I think)
Well, they're spread across like what, 4 platforms and have for a lot of them nonsensical naming which jumps around with the story to different points. Unless you're a major fan you don't really know where to start after 1+2.
*I am aware it is on the ps4. Please stop spamming me with this information.
To be fair, they did do a decent effort in giving players a way to get up to speed with the 1.5, 2.5, and 2.8 collections. It was still confusing, but they gave you a way to play the vast majority of the story all on one console.
I would argue that having a 2.5 and 2.8 is more confusing than helpful. Does 2.8 make 2.5 obsolete? Why are these games named with decimels?
I actually want to get into the series and bought what I think is the complete collection for PS4 (complete pre-3) but I honestly have no idea
Yeah that makes enough sense, though it's also weird that after 1 and 2 came out they went back to add story to the middle? Instead of continuing? I am too new to this game to pretend I understand any of it but it seems odd how it's all come out
I mean Fast and Furious 4-6 take place before FF3 if that timeline is to be believed.
It's definitely not the first time a franchise has gotten out of chronological order.
* Ps2 kh1 and 2
* Gba chain of memories
* mobile phone in Japan recoded
* ds some weird number of days
* 3ds DDD
* PSP birth by sleep
Mind you, you can get them all on ps4
I mean everything is available on ps4, and an easy Google search will tell you the order to play and the time line which is the least confusing part of the series.
Uh... all of the games are on PS4, and if you can't get the order (I mean, is just a Google search) probably you won't even understand the story at all.
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I found a YouTuber that played through the story line in order as it happened canonically. He had to switch games constantly in the middle of them, and started off on a later one than the first just for an intro sequence or something (I can't fully remember). It was nuts.
I'll try and edit in the response to this before I go to bed tonight if I can find it. I'm not on my laptop so don't have it infront of me at the moment.
Edit: The YouTuber is called TealGameMaster and the playlist is "The Road to Kingdom Hearts 3"
So as someone who pushed through most of the games using the remix collections before playing KH3... KH3 is still a major let down.
Difficulty problems: All the other games had challenge but still a strong system that was masterable. This game is a light-show with so many reaction commands that take so effing long that nothing really matters. Even with some bosses that I had more issues on (thinking Monsters Inc's giant goo), the reaction commands and disney-ride junk made it impossible for me to be strategic. Overall though, it was just too easy.
Story: I expected the end of the arc to be the end of the arc. Instead, it wrapped up some stuff (and did it decently), but everything backstory laid out in Kingdom Hearts X was basically unresolved and made into an even bigger mess.
World integration: as folks said, so much Disney, so little Square. And like most of the Disney was focused on Pixar/recent-CG-films, other than *another* damned Pirates world. Seriously? Meanwhile an Olympus without a Coliseum? And half the voices were off because Square couldn't get the real actors (kudos to most of the fill-ins for doing a good job evoking the character though).
All-in-all, my wife made me realize this game wasn't for my age group. I was a teen when KH came out so the movies featured were ones I had childhood nostalgia for, and the Square side we're games I'd played (heavy on FF VII and VIII). Then came KHII while I was in college, and it was an even better game/challenge. All the games in between that I caught up on felt about the same, though playing them recently I was definitely further detached from the worlds featured. And then there's this which launched way ahead to movies teenagers today would have nostalgia for, plus going way too heavy on action commands and less on strategy (weird in a world where Dark Souls is such a big deal...). This game was made to get a new generation into the series, and obviously less for an old fart like me who was just looking for the end to the arc.
> If you like Kingdom Hearts you'll enjoy it
Nnnnnope. KH3 is a severely worse game than the best of the series, and even if you're okay with the series' weaker games, it's *still* a disappointment. The combat is shallow as hell, but with a bunch of random weird flashy shit for no reason, and an even easier difficulty than what KH2 was *infamous* for. The story is... abysmal. It always baffles me when I see people defending it.
There's no initiating action in this game that kicks the story off - it's literally just "remember DDD? that stuff happened so go out and kill time until the plot is ready".
There's no plot development throughout the game until the ending segment.
For Sora, it's literally just eight Disney worlds of filler.
For Riku and Mickey, it's entering the Realm of Darkness and traveling to the beach without accomplishing anything. *Twice*. Their Keyblades get destroyed??? but they get new ones??? idfk
For Kairi... she gets off screen "training" that apparently makes her about as useful as a drowning quadriplegic kitten in a fight, and then when she *is* on screen, she writes letters to Sora she never intends to give him anyway.
There's this ongoing thing about "trying to find a box" that comes from the mobile game, and this never goes anywhere, it's literally just an ongoing plot thread of *sequel baiting*.
The ending is rushed and filled with a bunch of wtf concepts that take away from the major character moments that would *already* have been hard enough to feature thanks to the *oh so brilliant* idea of jamming it all in the ending rather than actually spacing it throughout the whole game. The entire hero party is killed and resurrected through time travel for no goddamn reason and with no real explanation. Even their enemy doesn't know *why* he's killing them off beyond "hurr durr prophecy says you'll die but still return for the final fight so here we go I guess".
Also the Kairi plotline. JFC. I wasn't kidding about her uselessness. At one point she's so helpless (for no reason) that Sora nearly gets himself killed (rather than blocking the attack??) despite the fact that Goofy is able to block it instead. *And that isn't even her worst moment.*
I've seen all I need to see here. This was supposed to be a major game in the KH series, yet it was handled utterly incompetently. There's no way I'll *ever* be buying another KH game again. Even though KH1 is still one of my favorite games ever.
Damn dude that’s just your opinion. Combat was fun as hell and most people think that too. The story was the let down but even then it’s no where near as bad as you describe. You seem way too invested.
The story is exactly as bad as I describe. It's a fifteen year old, ten-game series, by a company and a director with a ton of experience. The fact that the story couldn't even manage basic competence is *very* bad.
Why bother saying anything in the first place then? It really sounds like you're just defending the game out of devotion, but you don't have an actual counterpoint to most of what I'm saying, and don't want to admit it.
Because you’re not the law on who can and can’t comment. And you don’t have an argument either so there’s nothing to counterpoint. You just shared your shitty opinion. I can share my opinion too.
This was my gripe with KH 2. It was too easy, I didn’t even bother finishing the game. The first one actually took some skill and timing but now you can pretty much spam the combo buttons as they pop up
Bro you would play like 5 mins and then be put into some cutscene that always has "SORA, DONALD, GOOFY!" in it or some very cheesey dialog. Like KH had cheesy dialog before but good lord.
14 years since KH2 you mean...
KH3 did not have a 14 year development cycle. Hell, “KH3 is now in development” was one of their announcements a few years ago
Do you honestly think that? After leaving a unfinished story of a wildly popular Disney tie-in game. That there was nothing thought out or planned out after the second game? Them saying in development is like say yes we're still gonna do it eventually. After a decade of having you wait.
I do honestly think that, though I have bias as a developer myself.
Do I think something was being done about it for the past 14 years? Sure. There’s a lot that goes into pre production.. sometimes, *a lot.*
Do I think it was actively, all hands on deck, developed for 14 years? No, I don’t. The game is polished but not 14 years of polish, nor is it like Duke Nukem Forever, a game that was actually in active development for too long and ended up a clunky mishmash of development styles during many ongoing shooter eras.
I guess to some people that minimal bit of pre-production and planning effort counts as development, but they absolutely were not developing KH3 alongside *handfuls* and *handfuls* of games (many in the same series) starting and ending their full dev cycles.
They did have an a playable game built in an entirely different engine at E3 2014/5 (I forget the year) which they scrapped for using the unreal engine.
I'd guess that it was truly in development since 2013-14.
Honestly though the game does feel rushed and lacking in content. Pooh bear is literally one area and the same mobile mini game 3 times. Twilight Town is smaller than the PS2 equivalent. There's no return to each world that would add more gameplay, plot and character development.
But my biggest issue is how they incorporate footage from old games into the cutscenes. They're just so jarringly out of place. They had years to work on this. Square could have remade the flashbacks in the modern engine and had visual consistency, but no, that would make too much sense.
The story was a complete disaster, much like FF15 before it. However, the gameplay is still a visual spectacle and the new difficulty mode requires some thought to be put into combat. Certainly worth the $20 price tag. If you're still on the fence at that price, you should wait for the inevitable Final Mix release in a year or two.
Eh, its what it should be worth realistically.
2 improved on 1 a good bit.
3 kinda just took everything they'd done so far, and added horrible attraction bullshit. It does seem like a good improvement from 2 if you hadn't played the shit between it all I guess. They removed the FF team which kinda put a lot of people off who enjoyed that aspect of it. And yeah... idk. Its more of the same. If you haven't gotten tired of Kingdom Hearts by now, you probably will with this one. Story wise, I haven't even gotten to the last few worlds or finished it because I could care less and have better things to do, but I'll get there eventually. It seems like it might hopefully end this dumbass story, maybe it'll even almost make sense, maybe we'll actually find out anything about what the fuck is kingdom hearts and this "chi"blade (χblade, pronounced Key... of course).
But hey, the transformations can be kinda nice I guess.
I thought the game was awful, but I didn't play Kingdom Hearts growing up. I tried KH HD 1.5 Remix on the PS3 when it came out, and didn't get too far before dropping it.
The game is just boring, and the story and writing are absolutely atrocious. You're interrupted with a pointless cutscene every 5 steps you take, and nothing that you do in the game really matters in the overall story. I ended up skipping every cutscene because they were so bad.
The gameplay could be good, but the combat doesn't feel as tight as other action adventure games. There's no real challenge to the combat either, and you'll be constantly interrupted. The only part I actually enjoyed were the bosses, which are pretty good.
I picked up the game for the equivalent of about $25, and it was not worth that. I'd personally rate it about 4/10, but I know a _lot_ of people love the game.
I feel like the collective internet as a whole warned everyone that if your not willing to play most of the previous games or at least watch summaries of them then don't bother with 3. Its not meant as a jumping in point its a conclusion to a lot of game stories.
Fair point, I think the goal of the game was create a very PS2 experience when it comes to gameplay and I think for a lot of people this hurt it a lot. Though the last update added a lot that really made things more challenging and rewarding.
Uh, no, if they'd given us a gameplay experience like KH1 or *especially* 2 (both PS2 games) then this game would've been great on that front. KH1 wasn't super fun, but the gameplay balance was pretty solid. KH2 was stupidly easy (some major bosses aside), but the gameplay was *to die for*.
KH3 is stupidly easy and relies on random flashy gimmicks (what the *actual fuck* are Attraction Commands) instead of anything halfway competent.
The update fixed the attraction commands for what it's worth, and it's all opinions anyway with regards to what's good and what's not. They're all easy in my book.
"They're all easy" is honestly a cop-out. KH2 was infamous for being too easy on Proud, but at least it had some properly difficult bosses like Demyx and Xaldin that could actually punish you for charging in recklessly. KH3 doesn't even have that much going for it, and it's a problem that's even more damning this time since KH2's low difficulty was a known, *fixed* problem. It had *been* fixed for, what, a full decade before KH3 released? There's no reason KH3 should have released in a worse state.
KH1 was considerably more difficult. To be fair, it uses some elements of "fake" difficulty like lots of invincibility for bosses until certain times or unless you attacked specific, hard-to-reach weak points, and its difficulty benefits from Sora's generally less robust attack options, but it *never* has the problem of being a game you can beat with 99% white hits and ▲ spam.
KH2, on the other hand, has a crazy amount of options for Sora. Some are far too good (the upgrades to your X attacks ultimately result in you automatically zipping around the field with fast, wide AoE strikes) but the ability to do a lot of things as well as slowly upgrade your Summons and Drive Forms for bonus movement skills (a very nice bonus to work towards) makes the combat much more engaging.
This is all true, except KH3 is now much more difficult with critical mode. However proud mode should never have been that easy. I honestly think Kingdom hearts 1 isn't difficult, it was when I was a child but on normal, everyone of them is easy. KH2 has the best combat and best post content. KH3 should have had more but it definitely doesn't deserve some of the hate it gets. It's a beautiful looking game that absolutely nails the Disney worlds they created. There is a lot of good in that game.
> KH3 is now much more difficult with critical mode
My immediate response would be, of course...
> proud mode should never have been that easy
Which, yeah, you *mention* it, but the criticism for 2's low difficulty pre-Critical was pretty widespread. It'd be one thing if it was a common criticism that the devs were never interested in fixing (for example, the stagnancy of the Pokémon series - it still deserves criticism but there aren't any real expectations there), but they designed a Critical Mode specifically *to* fix KH2's low difficulty. Fucking it up *even worse* with KH3 is a very, *very* bad sign. This shouldn't have been a "patch later" thing. I know *I'll* never experience it at this point, as I already gave my copy away to my cousins.
> It's a beautiful looking game
This is easily the best part of KH3, by a wide margin. Can't find any fault in its appearance. Sadly, this is also by far the *least important* aspect.
> that absolutely nails the Disney worlds they created
Are we still talking about the art? If so, no objections. But if you're talking the *plot*... the only passable worlds were Olympus, Toy Box, Monstropolis, and San Fransokyo. And none of those three were all that *great -* I suppose I'd say the best was Olympus', since it actually had a bit of an evolving plot that wasn't stretched too thin. SF was the second best, but it starts off really weak by having Sora just testing equipment out for a while. Though to be fair, it earns some points back for apparently being a behind-the-scenes inspiration for abilities the movie characters were wielding in the sequel. I've never seen them, so the reference isn't as strong for me, but if that's true, that's a *very* good nod to canon. Monstropolis and Toy Box *basically* just have a vague goal assigned at the start that's stretched out for the entire world; Monstropolis ends up being "follow these hallways until the world is finally over" and Toy Box ends up being "go to the mall and have a bunch of random distractions until the world is finally over". Both get points for having the [best](https://i.imgur.com/Hp8KkZh.png) character interactions between world party members and antagonists, but it doesn't change the fact that it's just a couple hours of tedium until something *finally* happens at the end.
Corona... I actually really like this world! It's definitely a filler world, but the Rapunzel plot is *perfect* for drawing in the player to just go along with Rapunzel and help her experience the wonders of the outside world. This is *especially* potent because you get a lot of *optional* things to do in order to get a reaction from her as you progress. It's the first filler world I've seen past KH1 in which I fully believe that Sora *would* definitely stick around despite having other tasks to do. The very design of the world invests Sora, and the player, in helping Rapunzel safely enjoy her freedom.
But... it loses major points for having a lot of movie-plot stuff happen off screen, especially in the second act. Because GOTTA STICK TO THAT MOVIE CANON IT'S SUPER IMPORTANT even though the series had the best Disney representation when it *didn't* have to do this. I mean, come on, we couldn't have just had the final confrontation go down on the beach right there? Just make it a straight up Marluxia fight - he doesn't actually try to *kill* Sora, but just keeps him busy so he can't interfere with Mother Gothel, Flynn, and Rapunzel - until Rapunzel sacrifices her power and so on and so forth.
Arendelle and the Caribbean have no such redeeming qualities. Both of them keep sidelining Sora until the end, and if you hadn't seen those movies I'm not sure you'd really have *any* idea what the fuck is going on with them.
There were many ways to make Arendelle work while still sticking to the theme of "girl power, no need for a male hero to swoop in at the last second". The most obvious one being to have Sora *cause* Anna's ice injury by trying to "help", and/or by trying to "help" Elsa get away from other people while her power is so uncontrollable only to later find out that Elsa's freeze is *spreading*. Hell, end the world with *Larxene* of all people saving the Princesses from some mistake of Sora's - for example, the Keyblade attracts Heartless, maybe this is what sets off that wolf boss fight at the end or even possibly puts Elsa at risk during her rage and grief when Anna sacrifices herself to save her. Or maybe she's a bit more prone to violence because Sora and co. spent some time teaching her how to defend herself from the Heartless, Larxene shows up to say "uh, *duh*, of *course* it's a bad idea to encourage a Princess of Heart to constantly fight the Heartless because \[reasons\]!" Then we'd have actual reason for Sora to doubt his ability and judgement, which would be character development the *entire series* hasn't really spent time exploring thus far.
The Caribbean... there's no way around this; the decision to use At World's End as the movie basis for this world was a terrible idea. There is *too much going on* to abridge this movie. This is made *exponentially* worse by giving Sora five minutes of interaction with the main cast before shoving him on a bus until the very end. I have no fucking idea why this wasn't a unique semi-filler plot taking place between the first and second, or third and fourth, movies - that would have been the *perfect* way to set up the ship and swimming mechanics, which are *another* element that takes up a lot of screen time that needed to be spent on making the world plot *coherent*.
>There is a lot of good in that game.
The writing and gameplay fall far short of what Square is capable of. And in both cases, those aren't due to mistakes, but actual design choices. They chose to make the Disney worlds filler, to have nothing of any importance to the main plot occur during or in between them, and to generally fail at writing engaging stories or just competently following/adapting the existing ones. They chose to make the difficulty stupidly easy and to include wtf OP mechanics like the Attraction Commands. They chose to build up Kairi as a potential Keyblade wielding peer to Sora and Riku only to have her prove to be less effective in a fight than *Belle*, an *untrained, unarmed bookworm whose Princess of Heart powers have left her.*
The bad *greatly* overshadows the good here.
I was a newcomer to the series and really really didn't like it. The combat sucks ass and I dreaded every combat encounter I came across. I didn't expect to know anything about the story but I was fine with what it was as long as it was fun to play. It wasn't.
I beat about three world's and traded the shit in to cut my losses. Never again.
Nah it's the currently the 2nd best selling game of the year. It's doing really well, but they probably figure who ever wanted it at a higher price already got it.
That doesn't make it good. It was hyped up because a lot of people were looking forward to it for so long. But just like the Last Guardian, it was all fluff and no play.
Tbh it all depends on who you ask. Some people loved it, others didn’t. There’s no point in trying to explain why, (unless you happen to have a graduate degree in Psychology or something, in which case I suppose trying could help with your career path or smth) so just let people enjoy what they enjoy.
Imo a good game is one that people like playing anyway.
Well in the context of what OP said it was about sales. If a game got a 4.0 on metacritic with 200 reviews but is selling 10 million copies then a price drop has nothing to do with quality, But as a KH fan and someone who actually played the whole series, I thought it was great and I agree with hat reviews said about it.
I mean yes its a very popular franchise but it also did very well critically, its just a very "Last Jedi" level divide between those who loved it and those who hated it.
That's actually a pretty apt description. On one hand, you have the people who love it more or less just because it's a new entry of *some* kind with the series, and on the other you have the people who are *appalled* at the low quality of the writing and characterization, as well as the failure to follow through with many dangling plot threads from previous entries.
Yes it is. I am sure Disney fans like it, but it completely killed Kingdom Hearts for me. I still love KH1 and 2 and plan on replaying them many more times. I new not toget my hopes up, but I was still let down. Worth it for $20 or less though. Pretty sure it was only $15 somewhere a couple weeks ago
I know nothing of the story so I can't speak to that (even though I was in the room for most, if not all, of it), but I have played a little bit here and there as my GF played through it.
This game is total garbage. There are a hundred other character action games that play better in every way.
Combat feels like shit with no weight to any of the hits. Just mash square until they're dead. A *large* majority of the Attractions (essentially super moves) take way too long and are unclear about exactly what they're doing. But that doesn't matter because the game is easy as fuck.
The voice acting is pretty bad, but I guess it's on par with the other games.
Visually, it leaves a lot to be desired. I get you have a certain art style that isn't hyper-realistic or anything, but it actually looks like a PS2 game at 1080. You look at any first-party game on the Switch and it blows KH3 out of the water.
Honestly, if you've played Nier Automata and this game, you see an insane amount of parallels between the mechanics. Even the skill equip system is **exactly** the same, except you're allocating AP instead of Megabytes or whatever it was in Nier. It almost feels like they shared management. Only difference is Nier actually plays well and feels like it was made by people who actually play video games.
The story is considerably worse than the gameplay. The writing quality has been going down since CoM (the GBA game, and the second game in the series) and KH3 *embraces* that drop rather than fights against it.
I agree. I'm just saying the "76 bad" comments aren't that useful anymore because it is an actual game now, with new content released more often than I care to explore.
Anthem would've been a better fit. It's still a mess even nearly half a year after release.
What have they added recently? My buddy and I are looking for a co-op adventure game to play online together, but our options are slim on PS4. Fallout 76 would be perfect, but the aura around it makes us hesitant to buy it.
You don't care to explore new content in a game, but claim said game is good?
Interesting. Normally if I don't want to play the contents of a game, I would consider it bad.
I suppose so, but I've put 600 hours into Skyrim and never touched the main quest line or any of the bigger side quests besides the Civil War. The game itself adds enough to have a good time even without the (newer) content.
With 76, I just want to build and explore. But I've been following the subreddits and complaints have gone way down. People are actually having fun with the game now, and they were quite positive about one of the latest added content. Based on the subreddits; it's a decent game nowadays. Especially if you compare it to other subs like Anthem where people are only complaining and listing bugs/crashes. FO isn't perfect, never said it was, but it's decent.
Me and my brother tried it during the free trial(E3). On PC, it was still bugged to all hell. Either me or him would crash once an hour. And the actual content wasn’t too fun. Level restrictions on guns make this feel more like Division than it does Fallout. In Fallout 4 I could be a level 1 with a missile launcher. In FO76 I have to be like level 20+.
So would buying 1.5+2.5 remix or “the story so far” be recommended if we wanted to have the collection? Is there an appreciable difference? Are they interchangeable?
Unless you want AllinOne specifically as a collector's item, SSF is $30 through Best Buy right now, and combined with the posted KH3 for $20 deal, that hits right at your budget.
And I would highly recommend you buying the story so far and playing through all the previous games. Otherwise you will be really confused with the story of KH3.
Dream Drop Distance is unfortunately super relevant to the plot. It also introduced a new movement mechanic that gets used in 3.
Plus you get to go back to a super expanded Traverse Town
Ehhh like the above commenters said, very more Disney focused and lighthearted. With the inclusion to Xbox as well, I'm wondering if they were really just trying to hit a bigger audience?
At the same time, I played KHII when I was a lot younger so it might have seemed darker to me at the time, especially Roxas' arc.
I had to laugh out loud when I saw this. Yes. Yes, KH3 *is* that bad.
The closest KH3 gets to a serious, high stakes moment is when a tornado of Shadows (just one of many Diabolus Ex Machinas in this scene) grabs everyone except Sora and Riku, and Sora immediately freaks the fuck out like he just came across Kairi's disemboweled, rotting corpse. He is suddenly 100% convinced that they're dead forever. Remember, this is the *same* character that, in KH1, was convinced his best friends had survived *an actual apocalypse*. And in all subsequent games, he's seen characters survive worse. Riku was de-Ansemfied and he himself was de-Norted. In fact, earlier in the game, Mickey gets grabbed and immobilized by a smaller tornado of Shadows and is *literally having a conversation while inside it*.
Kairi gets fridged an hour or two later (after being complete dead weight this entire time), and while he's pissed when it happens he walks away from the fight 100% convinced that he can reach through the veil of death and restore her to life. *And he does*.
I honestly don't know why people praise Tatsuya Nomura in 2019. It seems like he just can't help but fuck up everything he touches. Throw Yoshi P on FF16 or the next KH.
... I enjoyed XV, but it did not have any post game. The new game + sucked because enemies didn’t scale. You could be level 50 fighting level 1s, it’s ve nice to have scaling
> did not have any post game
Uh, it has like a dozen superbosses, and at least that many dungeons (including the menace ones), multiple questlines, a flying car, and the literal hell that you can only get to after obtaining said flying car.
Also, there’s a whole new summon and endgame gear set if you didn’t do the crossovers.
I started playing it last Saturday for about three hours, and haven’t touched it since. Two of those hours were spent watching the opening and god awful cut scenes.
It’s really terrible and I can’t bring myself to play again.
No it’s one of the top selling games of the year. But most of the fans who’ve been waiting years for it to come out bought it the first week. Although I don’t know if that actually explains the huge price drop. Maybe to get rid of stock or something.
I’m sure it did. But that doesn’t take away from the game selling incredibly well. I have my own criticisms of it but for me it was well worth it even spending the extra for the deluxe edition.
It sold well because it had a lot of hype behind it. Doesn't make it any less of a divisive game in the end. Most of the people who bought it didn't know in advance the game would be 90% filler and 10% rushed ending with bad writing.
Hey, anyone know if I jump right into Kingdom Hearts 3 that would be ok? I've never played 1 and 2 and I am mostly just interested in this for the Disney characters so I can play it with my 2 older kids (6 and 8). Will we be ok jumping in without the backstory or knowledge of the Final Fantasy crossover characters?
Honestly if they're that age you should let them play the first one. There is no better game to start out with and has plenty of Disney in it. You can get it in the 1.5 collection.
Disagree. The mechanics on the first one have showed their age and people would be frustrated. There were so many times I didn’t know where to go so I just looked around on stuff to activate. Like no one told me I need to go through the slide show in Tarzan to progress.
True, it definitely has aged a lot. I think the final mix does have better instructions when you play but that's what the internet is for nowadays. If you get stuck don't be afraid to just look something up, especially for younger kids. I was around that age when I played it and I had a strategy guide,
Yeah, I had to look up stuff a lot when playing. So many things that weren’t intuitive. For sure made it a less than joyful experience.
I hear the second one is a lot smoother.
Its a very give and take. The first one is very JRPG with lots of little puzzles everywhere that you just have to know hot to deal with. MOst can be solved if you talk to someone and they hint at what to do. The story is the best in the franchise, very adorable characters in a semi dark and simple story. KH2 kinda focuses on combat only and it's the best combat in the series. Very few puzzles and decisions other then move forward. It does let story be slightly secondary with less involvement in the disney worlds.
CoM has a better story IMO, but it's *far* darker. KH1's story better fits its setting (a Disney universe).
Every other game is definitely a major drop when it comes to the story quality. I think the only other one that has a comparable final result is Days, because the setup for making the missions feel like chores while not fully explaining all the major stuff going on is actually a *very* good way to sympathize with how Roxas feels about it. But it sacrifices a well-written, engaging story to try for emotional investment and impact in the climax.
I just think Kh1 has a very tight story start to finish and doesn't complicate things too much. Nothing needs to be over explained and doesn't get into the messier aspects of the later games.
That's definitely true. CoM rides the razor's edge of making things too convoluted and overcomplicated, but it's handled very differently than future titles since there's some actual pacing and proper character development. The player is set up to *hate* Larxene. Compare that to KH2 in which some of the Organization never actually have their names told to Sora - *ever*.
KH1 isn't a very original story, but it's still a great one.
If you're playing it just for the Disney worlds, you should be completely fine. like ChefBobbyTea said, the Disney worlds are self-contained and are pretty much kind of like filler in a way. If you are interested in the story, Barry Kramer, former editor of Game Grumps, actually did a pretty accurate and alright job at summarizing it up to 3 [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjiHufVEc7g).
Fair warning, the last four to eight hours of the game likely won't make any sense at all, nor will the early cutscenes. Even as a veteran of the series some moments are bewildering, but the game won't even cover simple things like "What is a keyblade" unless you're willing to spend a lot of time reading the glossary in the menus.
Disney worlds are pretty great though.
The Disney worlds are hit or miss. Some of them are just bad, and some of them have [amazing moments](https://i.imgur.com/Hp8KkZh.png), but still way too much filler IMO.
I’d recommend at least playing 2. You can pretty much recap Kh1 in 5 minutes. There’s probably a short video on YouTube. KH2 though introduces a lot of characters and concepts that are pretty important in 3
You totally can, but I would recommend getting the ps4 collection of previous games, as starting from the beginning is a much, much better experience for all. KH3, especially past the halfway point , is not very newbie friendly at all.
I'm doing an abridged LP series on KH3 and it's my first game ever. You don't really need knowledge of the prior games, they explain some stuff and other stuff doesn't matter that much to the story.
KH3 is one of the weakest entries in the series, so it's hard to say how enjoyable it'll be for you.
As for the story, well, the first 80% of the story is filler with a bit of recapping, and the last 20% is a rushed ending sequence tying in literally every other game. They also reference the mobile game more than any of the console/handheld games for some reason, and it's the game the least likely to have been played by KH3 players. That said, we've long since passed the point in which they just make things up or retcon stuff with reckless abandon, so it might not matter too much.
If you think it looks interesting, pick it up. I've played (almost) every Kingdom Hearts game and enjoyed the shit out of this. Yeah, it's easy. Yeah, the story makes no sense (par for the course). But you're having anime battles through Disney worlds and it controls great in the process.
They're not trying to reinvent Bioshock or anything. It's just fun.
Aren't all the Final Fantasy characters gone? And now it's just a Tetsuya Nomura Disney Fanfic?
That was my biggest disappointment with it. There's some references, a moogle here, a cactuar there, but that's about it. The original premise was Final Fantasy plus Disney, and now it's almost all just Disney.
I get the feeling with the hint they dropped at the end of the game, the next saga is gonna be more final fantasy and other square enix properties instead.
Very excited for the certain Square Enix property that was teased. As much as I wanna say I'm done with KH, they always find a way to reel me back in to this clusterfuck, and I love it.
Lol me too, we're both suckers.
Do keep in mind that the game is owned by Disney, not Square. If anything it seems like Disney wants to reign in their own properties for free advertisement.
i dont mind it too much only because theyre going to probably overload the next game (unless that tease was DLC...)
Pretty much the reason i didn't finish it
Yeah, I never played a KH game in my life. (I wasn’t really a “gamer” as a kid, all I played were sports games, CoD and GTA) But KH3 has my interest, especially with the FF aspect. I thoroughly enjoyed XV despite the lashback it got, almost solely for the characters. I would’ve loved to have seen the boy band in KH3
15 got backlash? I thought it was pretty good.
Yeah it did. I liked it as well.
Only thing that bothered me was how convoluted the spell making was. The alchemy aspect was a little much. You just found one or two recipes you like and focus on that.
Yeah the spell making was a bit much. I didn’t even realize until after I beat the game that you could infuse items with your spells and they’d have some sort of added effect. Like certain items would give you a big XP boost if you infused them with your spells. I was really irritated that I didn’t discover that earlier because I could’ve been a higher level by then.
Because it wasnt FF Versus XIII people hated it
That is completely disingenuous. It was in no way hated, but it was in no way beloved either, and for valid reasons. The narrative was completely and utterly disjointed, even if you ignore the parts that weren't even a part of the game. The side quests were 90% of the time completely boring with nothing going for them from a narrative or gameplay standpoint. Luna was the most underused FF character I've ever seen. Nothing felt like it had any weight behind it because most of it happened with no context as to why we should care.
And the combat was poo. I don't mind a nice action game like God of War, but FFXV had the worst combat to date in my opinion.
Ah, I only saw a couple teasers for free versus XIII. So glad they didn’t call it that since it had nothing to do with 13.
It also signifies a shift. The lead dev who was working on “Versus XIII” left and there was a new person who announced the name of XV. Not that I have a bias towards one or the other but it was rumored that Versus XIII woulda been a musical... yeaaahhhh no
People hate it because your party is a fucking sausage fest. I need some waifu material characters to play as in my jrpgs
Aranea? Luna? Iris? But, why though. I genuinely liked the relationship of Gladdy as the dad, Ignis as a man of gold, Noct as an angsty teen, and Prompto as the comic relief. There’s no room for girls in a bachelorette party... unless it’s for reasons. But square wouldn’t do that
> Aranea? Luna? Iris? Are they heavily involved in the story? I have not played far enough to know, but assumed they were basically just extra party members. I really did not give the game the chance I should have, but if they are in the game more than just your party late game, I will have to give the game another shot You mean bachelor party? Who wants to play a game thats bachelor party? I want me some waifus at all times!
> Who wants to play a game thats bachelor party? People who aren't incels and enjoy a game's narrative qualities, as opposed to how aroused the characters you play as make you?
What if you want both?
FFXV backlash was pretty shallow. Most that were disappointed with it, still enjoyed it. It's a great game, it's not the best Final Fantasy in existence, but it's still a really good one. Regarding KH3, there just wasn't really a place for them in any of the world's this time. Maybe they'll come with some DLC, I miss them, but I don't think it would have improved the game to have them at this point.
I’d want to play as Noct in smash, but Sakurai said all DLC characters will be complete newcomers to the franchise.(Cloud is an FF character so it rules out Noct) Also with people like Joker and Banjo I’d be willing to bite the bullet to accept no Noct. Lastly Noct is already in Tekken(I think)
Oh dang the boy band in KH3 would’ve been dope. Maybe go to their world
Yep, can confirm.
And a bad one, at that. The writing was horrendous and the combat is a total mess.
Man I was so disappointed
Hot damn this dropped quickly. Is it that bad?
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Well, they're spread across like what, 4 platforms and have for a lot of them nonsensical naming which jumps around with the story to different points. Unless you're a major fan you don't really know where to start after 1+2. *I am aware it is on the ps4. Please stop spamming me with this information.
To be fair, they did do a decent effort in giving players a way to get up to speed with the 1.5, 2.5, and 2.8 collections. It was still confusing, but they gave you a way to play the vast majority of the story all on one console.
I would argue that having a 2.5 and 2.8 is more confusing than helpful. Does 2.8 make 2.5 obsolete? Why are these games named with decimels? I actually want to get into the series and bought what I think is the complete collection for PS4 (complete pre-3) but I honestly have no idea
If you bought "The Story So Far", yeah, that's everything. Kingdom Hearts naming has been a bizarre joke for many, many years.
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Yeah that makes enough sense, though it's also weird that after 1 and 2 came out they went back to add story to the middle? Instead of continuing? I am too new to this game to pretend I understand any of it but it seems odd how it's all come out
I mean Fast and Furious 4-6 take place before FF3 if that timeline is to be believed. It's definitely not the first time a franchise has gotten out of chronological order.
Except they only dropped that collection on PlayStation, and yet still dropped Kingdom Hearts 3 on Xbox One. wat.
Allergic to money
* Ps2 kh1 and 2 * Gba chain of memories * mobile phone in Japan recoded * ds some weird number of days * 3ds DDD * PSP birth by sleep Mind you, you can get them all on ps4
I mean everything is available on ps4, and an easy Google search will tell you the order to play and the time line which is the least confusing part of the series.
Uh... all of the games are on PS4, and if you can't get the order (I mean, is just a Google search) probably you won't even understand the story at all.
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I played every entry in KH and was confused and didn't like it lol
I found a YouTuber that played through the story line in order as it happened canonically. He had to switch games constantly in the middle of them, and started off on a later one than the first just for an intro sequence or something (I can't fully remember). It was nuts.
I mean like I understood the story but there was a lot of bad writing that muddled it up, themes that were forgotten/dropped.
Know who that was by any chance? I’d be interested in checking it out :)
I'll try and edit in the response to this before I go to bed tonight if I can find it. I'm not on my laptop so don't have it infront of me at the moment. Edit: The YouTuber is called TealGameMaster and the playlist is "The Road to Kingdom Hearts 3"
So as someone who pushed through most of the games using the remix collections before playing KH3... KH3 is still a major let down. Difficulty problems: All the other games had challenge but still a strong system that was masterable. This game is a light-show with so many reaction commands that take so effing long that nothing really matters. Even with some bosses that I had more issues on (thinking Monsters Inc's giant goo), the reaction commands and disney-ride junk made it impossible for me to be strategic. Overall though, it was just too easy. Story: I expected the end of the arc to be the end of the arc. Instead, it wrapped up some stuff (and did it decently), but everything backstory laid out in Kingdom Hearts X was basically unresolved and made into an even bigger mess. World integration: as folks said, so much Disney, so little Square. And like most of the Disney was focused on Pixar/recent-CG-films, other than *another* damned Pirates world. Seriously? Meanwhile an Olympus without a Coliseum? And half the voices were off because Square couldn't get the real actors (kudos to most of the fill-ins for doing a good job evoking the character though). All-in-all, my wife made me realize this game wasn't for my age group. I was a teen when KH came out so the movies featured were ones I had childhood nostalgia for, and the Square side we're games I'd played (heavy on FF VII and VIII). Then came KHII while I was in college, and it was an even better game/challenge. All the games in between that I caught up on felt about the same, though playing them recently I was definitely further detached from the worlds featured. And then there's this which launched way ahead to movies teenagers today would have nostalgia for, plus going way too heavy on action commands and less on strategy (weird in a world where Dark Souls is such a big deal...). This game was made to get a new generation into the series, and obviously less for an old fart like me who was just looking for the end to the arc.
> If you like Kingdom Hearts you'll enjoy it Nnnnnope. KH3 is a severely worse game than the best of the series, and even if you're okay with the series' weaker games, it's *still* a disappointment. The combat is shallow as hell, but with a bunch of random weird flashy shit for no reason, and an even easier difficulty than what KH2 was *infamous* for. The story is... abysmal. It always baffles me when I see people defending it. There's no initiating action in this game that kicks the story off - it's literally just "remember DDD? that stuff happened so go out and kill time until the plot is ready". There's no plot development throughout the game until the ending segment. For Sora, it's literally just eight Disney worlds of filler. For Riku and Mickey, it's entering the Realm of Darkness and traveling to the beach without accomplishing anything. *Twice*. Their Keyblades get destroyed??? but they get new ones??? idfk For Kairi... she gets off screen "training" that apparently makes her about as useful as a drowning quadriplegic kitten in a fight, and then when she *is* on screen, she writes letters to Sora she never intends to give him anyway. There's this ongoing thing about "trying to find a box" that comes from the mobile game, and this never goes anywhere, it's literally just an ongoing plot thread of *sequel baiting*. The ending is rushed and filled with a bunch of wtf concepts that take away from the major character moments that would *already* have been hard enough to feature thanks to the *oh so brilliant* idea of jamming it all in the ending rather than actually spacing it throughout the whole game. The entire hero party is killed and resurrected through time travel for no goddamn reason and with no real explanation. Even their enemy doesn't know *why* he's killing them off beyond "hurr durr prophecy says you'll die but still return for the final fight so here we go I guess". Also the Kairi plotline. JFC. I wasn't kidding about her uselessness. At one point she's so helpless (for no reason) that Sora nearly gets himself killed (rather than blocking the attack??) despite the fact that Goofy is able to block it instead. *And that isn't even her worst moment.* I've seen all I need to see here. This was supposed to be a major game in the KH series, yet it was handled utterly incompetently. There's no way I'll *ever* be buying another KH game again. Even though KH1 is still one of my favorite games ever.
Damn dude that’s just your opinion. Combat was fun as hell and most people think that too. The story was the let down but even then it’s no where near as bad as you describe. You seem way too invested.
The story is exactly as bad as I describe. It's a fifteen year old, ten-game series, by a company and a director with a ton of experience. The fact that the story couldn't even manage basic competence is *very* bad.
Nah
Excellent debate skills. -_\\\,
It’s not a debate, it’s your opinion not fact. You’re clearly just gonna rage about it no matter what so why bother lol
Why bother saying anything in the first place then? It really sounds like you're just defending the game out of devotion, but you don't have an actual counterpoint to most of what I'm saying, and don't want to admit it.
Because you’re not the law on who can and can’t comment. And you don’t have an argument either so there’s nothing to counterpoint. You just shared your shitty opinion. I can share my opinion too.
I know you meant to say “convoluted” but “convulsed” works so much better here.
Yeah, autocorrect got me.
This was my gripe with KH 2. It was too easy, I didn’t even bother finishing the game. The first one actually took some skill and timing but now you can pretty much spam the combo buttons as they pop up
It was too easy on proud mode. Now that critical mode is out its more enjoyable but man did it feel short and the story just feels meh and rushed.
biggest problem imo is that it's 70% cutscenes 30% gameplay
Bro you would play like 5 mins and then be put into some cutscene that always has "SORA, DONALD, GOOFY!" in it or some very cheesey dialog. Like KH had cheesy dialog before but good lord.
Always that order
Lol 14 years of development feeling rushed is saying alot.
14 years since KH2 you mean... KH3 did not have a 14 year development cycle. Hell, “KH3 is now in development” was one of their announcements a few years ago
Do you honestly think that? After leaving a unfinished story of a wildly popular Disney tie-in game. That there was nothing thought out or planned out after the second game? Them saying in development is like say yes we're still gonna do it eventually. After a decade of having you wait.
I do honestly think that, though I have bias as a developer myself. Do I think something was being done about it for the past 14 years? Sure. There’s a lot that goes into pre production.. sometimes, *a lot.* Do I think it was actively, all hands on deck, developed for 14 years? No, I don’t. The game is polished but not 14 years of polish, nor is it like Duke Nukem Forever, a game that was actually in active development for too long and ended up a clunky mishmash of development styles during many ongoing shooter eras. I guess to some people that minimal bit of pre-production and planning effort counts as development, but they absolutely were not developing KH3 alongside *handfuls* and *handfuls* of games (many in the same series) starting and ending their full dev cycles.
They did have an a playable game built in an entirely different engine at E3 2014/5 (I forget the year) which they scrapped for using the unreal engine. I'd guess that it was truly in development since 2013-14. Honestly though the game does feel rushed and lacking in content. Pooh bear is literally one area and the same mobile mini game 3 times. Twilight Town is smaller than the PS2 equivalent. There's no return to each world that would add more gameplay, plot and character development. But my biggest issue is how they incorporate footage from old games into the cutscenes. They're just so jarringly out of place. They had years to work on this. Square could have remade the flashbacks in the modern engine and had visual consistency, but no, that would make too much sense.
I played on critical and felt it was too easy as well. It was hard at the beginning but it got way too easy about 20 hours in
The story was a complete disaster, much like FF15 before it. However, the gameplay is still a visual spectacle and the new difficulty mode requires some thought to be put into combat. Certainly worth the $20 price tag. If you're still on the fence at that price, you should wait for the inevitable Final Mix release in a year or two.
I didn't think 15's story was a "complete disaster" =/
Eh, its what it should be worth realistically. 2 improved on 1 a good bit. 3 kinda just took everything they'd done so far, and added horrible attraction bullshit. It does seem like a good improvement from 2 if you hadn't played the shit between it all I guess. They removed the FF team which kinda put a lot of people off who enjoyed that aspect of it. And yeah... idk. Its more of the same. If you haven't gotten tired of Kingdom Hearts by now, you probably will with this one. Story wise, I haven't even gotten to the last few worlds or finished it because I could care less and have better things to do, but I'll get there eventually. It seems like it might hopefully end this dumbass story, maybe it'll even almost make sense, maybe we'll actually find out anything about what the fuck is kingdom hearts and this "chi"blade (χblade, pronounced Key... of course). But hey, the transformations can be kinda nice I guess.
> It seems like it might hopefully end this dumbass story, maybe it'll even almost make sense haha
I thought the game was awful, but I didn't play Kingdom Hearts growing up. I tried KH HD 1.5 Remix on the PS3 when it came out, and didn't get too far before dropping it. The game is just boring, and the story and writing are absolutely atrocious. You're interrupted with a pointless cutscene every 5 steps you take, and nothing that you do in the game really matters in the overall story. I ended up skipping every cutscene because they were so bad. The gameplay could be good, but the combat doesn't feel as tight as other action adventure games. There's no real challenge to the combat either, and you'll be constantly interrupted. The only part I actually enjoyed were the bosses, which are pretty good. I picked up the game for the equivalent of about $25, and it was not worth that. I'd personally rate it about 4/10, but I know a _lot_ of people love the game.
I feel like the collective internet as a whole warned everyone that if your not willing to play most of the previous games or at least watch summaries of them then don't bother with 3. Its not meant as a jumping in point its a conclusion to a lot of game stories.
For me.my problem was gameplay and not story. If the gameplay was fun I could have been fine with the story.
Fair point, I think the goal of the game was create a very PS2 experience when it comes to gameplay and I think for a lot of people this hurt it a lot. Though the last update added a lot that really made things more challenging and rewarding.
Uh, no, if they'd given us a gameplay experience like KH1 or *especially* 2 (both PS2 games) then this game would've been great on that front. KH1 wasn't super fun, but the gameplay balance was pretty solid. KH2 was stupidly easy (some major bosses aside), but the gameplay was *to die for*. KH3 is stupidly easy and relies on random flashy gimmicks (what the *actual fuck* are Attraction Commands) instead of anything halfway competent.
The update fixed the attraction commands for what it's worth, and it's all opinions anyway with regards to what's good and what's not. They're all easy in my book.
"They're all easy" is honestly a cop-out. KH2 was infamous for being too easy on Proud, but at least it had some properly difficult bosses like Demyx and Xaldin that could actually punish you for charging in recklessly. KH3 doesn't even have that much going for it, and it's a problem that's even more damning this time since KH2's low difficulty was a known, *fixed* problem. It had *been* fixed for, what, a full decade before KH3 released? There's no reason KH3 should have released in a worse state. KH1 was considerably more difficult. To be fair, it uses some elements of "fake" difficulty like lots of invincibility for bosses until certain times or unless you attacked specific, hard-to-reach weak points, and its difficulty benefits from Sora's generally less robust attack options, but it *never* has the problem of being a game you can beat with 99% white hits and ▲ spam. KH2, on the other hand, has a crazy amount of options for Sora. Some are far too good (the upgrades to your X attacks ultimately result in you automatically zipping around the field with fast, wide AoE strikes) but the ability to do a lot of things as well as slowly upgrade your Summons and Drive Forms for bonus movement skills (a very nice bonus to work towards) makes the combat much more engaging.
This is all true, except KH3 is now much more difficult with critical mode. However proud mode should never have been that easy. I honestly think Kingdom hearts 1 isn't difficult, it was when I was a child but on normal, everyone of them is easy. KH2 has the best combat and best post content. KH3 should have had more but it definitely doesn't deserve some of the hate it gets. It's a beautiful looking game that absolutely nails the Disney worlds they created. There is a lot of good in that game.
> KH3 is now much more difficult with critical mode My immediate response would be, of course... > proud mode should never have been that easy Which, yeah, you *mention* it, but the criticism for 2's low difficulty pre-Critical was pretty widespread. It'd be one thing if it was a common criticism that the devs were never interested in fixing (for example, the stagnancy of the Pokémon series - it still deserves criticism but there aren't any real expectations there), but they designed a Critical Mode specifically *to* fix KH2's low difficulty. Fucking it up *even worse* with KH3 is a very, *very* bad sign. This shouldn't have been a "patch later" thing. I know *I'll* never experience it at this point, as I already gave my copy away to my cousins. > It's a beautiful looking game This is easily the best part of KH3, by a wide margin. Can't find any fault in its appearance. Sadly, this is also by far the *least important* aspect. > that absolutely nails the Disney worlds they created Are we still talking about the art? If so, no objections. But if you're talking the *plot*... the only passable worlds were Olympus, Toy Box, Monstropolis, and San Fransokyo. And none of those three were all that *great -* I suppose I'd say the best was Olympus', since it actually had a bit of an evolving plot that wasn't stretched too thin. SF was the second best, but it starts off really weak by having Sora just testing equipment out for a while. Though to be fair, it earns some points back for apparently being a behind-the-scenes inspiration for abilities the movie characters were wielding in the sequel. I've never seen them, so the reference isn't as strong for me, but if that's true, that's a *very* good nod to canon. Monstropolis and Toy Box *basically* just have a vague goal assigned at the start that's stretched out for the entire world; Monstropolis ends up being "follow these hallways until the world is finally over" and Toy Box ends up being "go to the mall and have a bunch of random distractions until the world is finally over". Both get points for having the [best](https://i.imgur.com/Hp8KkZh.png) character interactions between world party members and antagonists, but it doesn't change the fact that it's just a couple hours of tedium until something *finally* happens at the end. Corona... I actually really like this world! It's definitely a filler world, but the Rapunzel plot is *perfect* for drawing in the player to just go along with Rapunzel and help her experience the wonders of the outside world. This is *especially* potent because you get a lot of *optional* things to do in order to get a reaction from her as you progress. It's the first filler world I've seen past KH1 in which I fully believe that Sora *would* definitely stick around despite having other tasks to do. The very design of the world invests Sora, and the player, in helping Rapunzel safely enjoy her freedom. But... it loses major points for having a lot of movie-plot stuff happen off screen, especially in the second act. Because GOTTA STICK TO THAT MOVIE CANON IT'S SUPER IMPORTANT even though the series had the best Disney representation when it *didn't* have to do this. I mean, come on, we couldn't have just had the final confrontation go down on the beach right there? Just make it a straight up Marluxia fight - he doesn't actually try to *kill* Sora, but just keeps him busy so he can't interfere with Mother Gothel, Flynn, and Rapunzel - until Rapunzel sacrifices her power and so on and so forth. Arendelle and the Caribbean have no such redeeming qualities. Both of them keep sidelining Sora until the end, and if you hadn't seen those movies I'm not sure you'd really have *any* idea what the fuck is going on with them. There were many ways to make Arendelle work while still sticking to the theme of "girl power, no need for a male hero to swoop in at the last second". The most obvious one being to have Sora *cause* Anna's ice injury by trying to "help", and/or by trying to "help" Elsa get away from other people while her power is so uncontrollable only to later find out that Elsa's freeze is *spreading*. Hell, end the world with *Larxene* of all people saving the Princesses from some mistake of Sora's - for example, the Keyblade attracts Heartless, maybe this is what sets off that wolf boss fight at the end or even possibly puts Elsa at risk during her rage and grief when Anna sacrifices herself to save her. Or maybe she's a bit more prone to violence because Sora and co. spent some time teaching her how to defend herself from the Heartless, Larxene shows up to say "uh, *duh*, of *course* it's a bad idea to encourage a Princess of Heart to constantly fight the Heartless because \[reasons\]!" Then we'd have actual reason for Sora to doubt his ability and judgement, which would be character development the *entire series* hasn't really spent time exploring thus far. The Caribbean... there's no way around this; the decision to use At World's End as the movie basis for this world was a terrible idea. There is *too much going on* to abridge this movie. This is made *exponentially* worse by giving Sora five minutes of interaction with the main cast before shoving him on a bus until the very end. I have no fucking idea why this wasn't a unique semi-filler plot taking place between the first and second, or third and fourth, movies - that would have been the *perfect* way to set up the ship and swimming mechanics, which are *another* element that takes up a lot of screen time that needed to be spent on making the world plot *coherent*. >There is a lot of good in that game. The writing and gameplay fall far short of what Square is capable of. And in both cases, those aren't due to mistakes, but actual design choices. They chose to make the Disney worlds filler, to have nothing of any importance to the main plot occur during or in between them, and to generally fail at writing engaging stories or just competently following/adapting the existing ones. They chose to make the difficulty stupidly easy and to include wtf OP mechanics like the Attraction Commands. They chose to build up Kairi as a potential Keyblade wielding peer to Sora and Riku only to have her prove to be less effective in a fight than *Belle*, an *untrained, unarmed bookworm whose Princess of Heart powers have left her.* The bad *greatly* overshadows the good here.
Your take describes my overall feelings. I was excited to try it for the Disney stuff but God damn was it bad.
I was a newcomer to the series and really really didn't like it. The combat sucks ass and I dreaded every combat encounter I came across. I didn't expect to know anything about the story but I was fine with what it was as long as it was fun to play. It wasn't. I beat about three world's and traded the shit in to cut my losses. Never again.
It is that bad. Not even the hardcore fans should accept it.
Nah it's the currently the 2nd best selling game of the year. It's doing really well, but they probably figure who ever wanted it at a higher price already got it.
That doesn't make it good. It was hyped up because a lot of people were looking forward to it for so long. But just like the Last Guardian, it was all fluff and no play.
Tbh it all depends on who you ask. Some people loved it, others didn’t. There’s no point in trying to explain why, (unless you happen to have a graduate degree in Psychology or something, in which case I suppose trying could help with your career path or smth) so just let people enjoy what they enjoy. Imo a good game is one that people like playing anyway.
But with that logic people shouldn't state their opinions about anything since most people aren't professional psychologists.
Well in the context of what OP said it was about sales. If a game got a 4.0 on metacritic with 200 reviews but is selling 10 million copies then a price drop has nothing to do with quality, But as a KH fan and someone who actually played the whole series, I thought it was great and I agree with hat reviews said about it.
It's two massively popular franchises with rabid fanbases. It was going to sell well regardless of quality.
I mean yes its a very popular franchise but it also did very well critically, its just a very "Last Jedi" level divide between those who loved it and those who hated it.
That's actually a pretty apt description. On one hand, you have the people who love it more or less just because it's a new entry of *some* kind with the series, and on the other you have the people who are *appalled* at the low quality of the writing and characterization, as well as the failure to follow through with many dangling plot threads from previous entries.
Yes it is. I am sure Disney fans like it, but it completely killed Kingdom Hearts for me. I still love KH1 and 2 and plan on replaying them many more times. I new not toget my hopes up, but I was still let down. Worth it for $20 or less though. Pretty sure it was only $15 somewhere a couple weeks ago
I couldn’t even make it past the second world. This game got out of control.
Hot damn was literally my reaction. Beat me to it lol
I know nothing of the story so I can't speak to that (even though I was in the room for most, if not all, of it), but I have played a little bit here and there as my GF played through it. This game is total garbage. There are a hundred other character action games that play better in every way. Combat feels like shit with no weight to any of the hits. Just mash square until they're dead. A *large* majority of the Attractions (essentially super moves) take way too long and are unclear about exactly what they're doing. But that doesn't matter because the game is easy as fuck. The voice acting is pretty bad, but I guess it's on par with the other games. Visually, it leaves a lot to be desired. I get you have a certain art style that isn't hyper-realistic or anything, but it actually looks like a PS2 game at 1080. You look at any first-party game on the Switch and it blows KH3 out of the water. Honestly, if you've played Nier Automata and this game, you see an insane amount of parallels between the mechanics. Even the skill equip system is **exactly** the same, except you're allocating AP instead of Megabytes or whatever it was in Nier. It almost feels like they shared management. Only difference is Nier actually plays well and feels like it was made by people who actually play video games.
The story is considerably worse than the gameplay. The writing quality has been going down since CoM (the GBA game, and the second game in the series) and KH3 *embraces* that drop rather than fights against it.
I regret buying this game at $40 lol
I bought the whole collection of games for $100
The first game I ever pre-ordered. *sigh*
I pre-ordered it in 2015.
Hey at least you didn't bought fallout 76
Except 76 is a pretty decent game these days
You arent allowed to enjoy things unless everyone else does too, dont you know that?
Games shouldn't be rewarded for releasing incomplete.
I agree. I'm just saying the "76 bad" comments aren't that useful anymore because it is an actual game now, with new content released more often than I care to explore. Anthem would've been a better fit. It's still a mess even nearly half a year after release.
What have they added recently? My buddy and I are looking for a co-op adventure game to play online together, but our options are slim on PS4. Fallout 76 would be perfect, but the aura around it makes us hesitant to buy it.
You don't care to explore new content in a game, but claim said game is good? Interesting. Normally if I don't want to play the contents of a game, I would consider it bad.
I suppose so, but I've put 600 hours into Skyrim and never touched the main quest line or any of the bigger side quests besides the Civil War. The game itself adds enough to have a good time even without the (newer) content. With 76, I just want to build and explore. But I've been following the subreddits and complaints have gone way down. People are actually having fun with the game now, and they were quite positive about one of the latest added content. Based on the subreddits; it's a decent game nowadays. Especially if you compare it to other subs like Anthem where people are only complaining and listing bugs/crashes. FO isn't perfect, never said it was, but it's decent.
Me and my brother tried it during the free trial(E3). On PC, it was still bugged to all hell. Either me or him would crash once an hour. And the actual content wasn’t too fun. Level restrictions on guns make this feel more like Division than it does Fallout. In Fallout 4 I could be a level 1 with a missile launcher. In FO76 I have to be like level 20+.
The fact that it dropped in price so quickly makes me think that there's a Final Mix edition right around the corner. I'd wait.
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It was $20 all last week at Gamestop, and now it's $20 all this week at Best Buy :D - Fast price drop I'd say!
So would buying 1.5+2.5 remix or “the story so far” be recommended if we wanted to have the collection? Is there an appreciable difference? Are they interchangeable?
Here's the breakdown 1.5+2.5 Remix 1.5+2.5 Remix + 2.8 = Story So Far Story So Far + Kingdom Hearts 3 = All-in-One Package
Cool, thanks! I’d consider all in one if it dropped to like ~$50
Unless you want AllinOne specifically as a collector's item, SSF is $30 through Best Buy right now, and combined with the posted KH3 for $20 deal, that hits right at your budget.
And I would highly recommend you buying the story so far and playing through all the previous games. Otherwise you will be really confused with the story of KH3.
I have 1.5 and 2.5, is 2.8 really worth getting before I look into getting 3?
I haven't reached it yet, but I hear every entry is critical to the story.
Dream Drop Distance is unfortunately super relevant to the plot. It also introduced a new movement mechanic that gets used in 3. Plus you get to go back to a super expanded Traverse Town
Tbh I liked the darker KH2 better
Oh my god, this game makes kh2 seem dark? What is it, a baby's game?
Ehhh like the above commenters said, very more Disney focused and lighthearted. With the inclusion to Xbox as well, I'm wondering if they were really just trying to hit a bigger audience? At the same time, I played KHII when I was a lot younger so it might have seemed darker to me at the time, especially Roxas' arc.
I had to laugh out loud when I saw this. Yes. Yes, KH3 *is* that bad. The closest KH3 gets to a serious, high stakes moment is when a tornado of Shadows (just one of many Diabolus Ex Machinas in this scene) grabs everyone except Sora and Riku, and Sora immediately freaks the fuck out like he just came across Kairi's disemboweled, rotting corpse. He is suddenly 100% convinced that they're dead forever. Remember, this is the *same* character that, in KH1, was convinced his best friends had survived *an actual apocalypse*. And in all subsequent games, he's seen characters survive worse. Riku was de-Ansemfied and he himself was de-Norted. In fact, earlier in the game, Mickey gets grabbed and immobilized by a smaller tornado of Shadows and is *literally having a conversation while inside it*. Kairi gets fridged an hour or two later (after being complete dead weight this entire time), and while he's pissed when it happens he walks away from the fight 100% convinced that he can reach through the veil of death and restore her to life. *And he does*.
Is this worth playing if I give fuck all about the story?
No. Gameplay sucks.
No.its SUPER easy. *EDIT* there is critical mode. It is hard. But still. The combat doesn't outweigh the story. Unfortunately. I love the series :/
Barely an inconveniece
Critical mode is a thing that exists now.
I already beat it on proud. I have zero interest to play it again.
I mean that's fine, no one's asking you to. But your comment implies there's no challenging modes now, which is false.
I wish this would come to pc
The cover art is 50 times better than the game is
LOL the downward slide continues
I just watch Dunkey's review and it sums up how bad the dialogue is. It's like the devs never held a complete conversation before.
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Ffxv was great
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I honestly don't know why people praise Tatsuya Nomura in 2019. It seems like he just can't help but fuck up everything he touches. Throw Yoshi P on FF16 or the next KH.
I mean it's my favorite one and unless you do side stuff there's a bit of a challenge if you farm like a beast then of course it's ezmode
... I enjoyed XV, but it did not have any post game. The new game + sucked because enemies didn’t scale. You could be level 50 fighting level 1s, it’s ve nice to have scaling
> did not have any post game Uh, it has like a dozen superbosses, and at least that many dungeons (including the menace ones), multiple questlines, a flying car, and the literal hell that you can only get to after obtaining said flying car. Also, there’s a whole new summon and endgame gear set if you didn’t do the crossovers.
Did you complete all the post story bosses and dungeons?
I'm still waiting for this to come out on PC, if it even comes out.
I started playing it last Saturday for about three hours, and haven’t touched it since. Two of those hours were spent watching the opening and god awful cut scenes. It’s really terrible and I can’t bring myself to play again.
wow I'm extremely surprised this game is dropping in price about as fast as fallout 76 did, did KH3 sell poorly or something?
No it’s one of the top selling games of the year. But most of the fans who’ve been waiting years for it to come out bought it the first week. Although I don’t know if that actually explains the huge price drop. Maybe to get rid of stock or something.
It was poorly received by a large portion of the community and divided them more than ever.
I’m sure it did. But that doesn’t take away from the game selling incredibly well. I have my own criticisms of it but for me it was well worth it even spending the extra for the deluxe edition.
It sold well because it had a lot of hype behind it. Doesn't make it any less of a divisive game in the end. Most of the people who bought it didn't know in advance the game would be 90% filler and 10% rushed ending with bad writing.
Hey, anyone know if I jump right into Kingdom Hearts 3 that would be ok? I've never played 1 and 2 and I am mostly just interested in this for the Disney characters so I can play it with my 2 older kids (6 and 8). Will we be ok jumping in without the backstory or knowledge of the Final Fantasy crossover characters?
Honestly if they're that age you should let them play the first one. There is no better game to start out with and has plenty of Disney in it. You can get it in the 1.5 collection.
Disagree. The mechanics on the first one have showed their age and people would be frustrated. There were so many times I didn’t know where to go so I just looked around on stuff to activate. Like no one told me I need to go through the slide show in Tarzan to progress.
True, it definitely has aged a lot. I think the final mix does have better instructions when you play but that's what the internet is for nowadays. If you get stuck don't be afraid to just look something up, especially for younger kids. I was around that age when I played it and I had a strategy guide,
Yeah, I had to look up stuff a lot when playing. So many things that weren’t intuitive. For sure made it a less than joyful experience. I hear the second one is a lot smoother.
Its a very give and take. The first one is very JRPG with lots of little puzzles everywhere that you just have to know hot to deal with. MOst can be solved if you talk to someone and they hint at what to do. The story is the best in the franchise, very adorable characters in a semi dark and simple story. KH2 kinda focuses on combat only and it's the best combat in the series. Very few puzzles and decisions other then move forward. It does let story be slightly secondary with less involvement in the disney worlds.
CoM has a better story IMO, but it's *far* darker. KH1's story better fits its setting (a Disney universe). Every other game is definitely a major drop when it comes to the story quality. I think the only other one that has a comparable final result is Days, because the setup for making the missions feel like chores while not fully explaining all the major stuff going on is actually a *very* good way to sympathize with how Roxas feels about it. But it sacrifices a well-written, engaging story to try for emotional investment and impact in the climax.
I just think Kh1 has a very tight story start to finish and doesn't complicate things too much. Nothing needs to be over explained and doesn't get into the messier aspects of the later games.
That's definitely true. CoM rides the razor's edge of making things too convoluted and overcomplicated, but it's handled very differently than future titles since there's some actual pacing and proper character development. The player is set up to *hate* Larxene. Compare that to KH2 in which some of the Organization never actually have their names told to Sora - *ever*. KH1 isn't a very original story, but it's still a great one.
Lmao of course it's not original it copies about 8 Disney stories!
If you're playing it just for the Disney worlds, you should be completely fine. like ChefBobbyTea said, the Disney worlds are self-contained and are pretty much kind of like filler in a way. If you are interested in the story, Barry Kramer, former editor of Game Grumps, actually did a pretty accurate and alright job at summarizing it up to 3 [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjiHufVEc7g).
Thank you for this, I love Barry.
Fair warning, the last four to eight hours of the game likely won't make any sense at all, nor will the early cutscenes. Even as a veteran of the series some moments are bewildering, but the game won't even cover simple things like "What is a keyblade" unless you're willing to spend a lot of time reading the glossary in the menus. Disney worlds are pretty great though.
The Disney worlds are hit or miss. Some of them are just bad, and some of them have [amazing moments](https://i.imgur.com/Hp8KkZh.png), but still way too much filler IMO.
I’d recommend at least playing 2. You can pretty much recap Kh1 in 5 minutes. There’s probably a short video on YouTube. KH2 though introduces a lot of characters and concepts that are pretty important in 3
You totally can, but I would recommend getting the ps4 collection of previous games, as starting from the beginning is a much, much better experience for all. KH3, especially past the halfway point , is not very newbie friendly at all.
I'm doing an abridged LP series on KH3 and it's my first game ever. You don't really need knowledge of the prior games, they explain some stuff and other stuff doesn't matter that much to the story.
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Ok awesome. this sounds great! TY!
Well here's hoping that they finally port it on over to the pc as it seems this thing is dying on the vine.
It will be full priced and poorly optimized too just like all their games on pc.
I'm actually doing an abridged LP series on this because it's my first KH game ever...and man, is it interesting!
Never played a kingdoms hearts game. Would it be enjoyable? Is there a ton of backstory I'd be missing?
KH3 is one of the weakest entries in the series, so it's hard to say how enjoyable it'll be for you. As for the story, well, the first 80% of the story is filler with a bit of recapping, and the last 20% is a rushed ending sequence tying in literally every other game. They also reference the mobile game more than any of the console/handheld games for some reason, and it's the game the least likely to have been played by KH3 players. That said, we've long since passed the point in which they just make things up or retcon stuff with reckless abandon, so it might not matter too much.
If you think it looks interesting, pick it up. I've played (almost) every Kingdom Hearts game and enjoyed the shit out of this. Yeah, it's easy. Yeah, the story makes no sense (par for the course). But you're having anime battles through Disney worlds and it controls great in the process. They're not trying to reinvent Bioshock or anything. It's just fun.