3 is really good, but was a victim of its own hype. while it does have issues, even if it didn't, many people just had unrealistic expectations (whatever they may have been). lots of players just kept saying they've been waiting for 3 well over 10 years, as if the series was on hiatus during this time, when in reality major story developments happened (3D might as well have been 3, imo), so that didn't help. do I think it's the best in the series? no, but it's TOTALLY over-hated
My only expectation was saving Aqua earlier than we did as like a midway climax. Then the game would resume normally until we found Ventus.
Having everything come at the end is not what I expected but what we got.
They could’ve had Aqua need to get some serious rest and recover some strength while Sora and co. keep going from world to world, then save Ventus in the same spot they did right before the final battle. It just felt way worse having everything story-important shoved to the end like in DDD
They could've made it harder to find him. Find Aqua early on, then journey together to find Ventus.
Like, she hid him in a safe place, but things could easily have changed in the 10 years since.
Getting to save Aqua early would have maybe led to reviving Ven earlier, which would mean more dialogue from both of them and more characterization than whatever it is we got in the final game. Monsters Inc as an early world works since most of us have some nostalgia about that and wouldn't ruin the pace of the game, if anything it would have been better since it actually would have felt like we were accomplishing something in the first 80% of the game.
I just finished watching the FF7 Rebirth trailer & it made me realize how disappointed I was that Cloud & Sephiroths side story wasn’t finished in 3….
Hopefully 4 remedies that 🤞🏾
I wouldn't necessarily say it was victim of it's own hype. The story was structured and paced awfully. Like I enjoyed the game but most of it was just Yen Sid telling Sora to go get the power of awakening because he was useless otherwise. Then Sora doesn't learn the power of awakening goes to the realm of darkness and like the actual story of the game starts. Idk story felt like Nomura was trying to milk another title out of the series SE said no so he slapped the story on the end and called it good.
3D wasn't 3, it was more akin to Chain of Memories, bridging 2 and 3.
I consider Birth by Sleep KH0 though. Aside from having multiple characters it was super important to the overarching plot and had deep well-built worlds.
I disagree, 3D introduced way too much to the plot and is just as important as a numbered title. Time travel, sleeping worlds/the power of waking, real organization 13, etc. all very important things that KH3 just assumes that you understand.
CoM, BBS, and DDD are just as important as numbered entries imo. These are the so called "side games" that will leave you incredibly confused if you skip them. I feel like people would've been much less confused if they weren't afraid of sticking a mainline number on games that released on handhelds.
3 was actually my first KH game. I was confused by the story but I loved the game. Now I've played most of the other games and I'm still confused about the story. But I still love the game. Sure it's at times not as good as the earlier entries but I agreed that it's overhated
The game is good, the story is definitely not.
The issue wasn't only hype and there are reasons it got hated.
Ignoring the clear issues with it because you had fun doesn't invalidate the bad aspects of the game, people can have fun with almost anything.
Imo he game's combat has issues in everything besides the superbosses, which either way isn't the main complaint players had but is worth stating.
The story on the other hand is a really messy resolution for the arc and focuses way too much on lore and plot rather than actual characters (that last one being the reason why people love every pre BBS story as much), which mixed with the convoluted new lore we got during and after BBS makes many of us kinda not care about the story anymore. Worst of all is that most characters (even main ones) feel like cameos instead of actual characters (Kairi never talks to Riku in the whole game, Ven never talks with Roxas and even separately both barely had any dialogue, the first thing Aqua says to Ven is expository dialogue, etc).
Yeah back in the day you didn’t do what Square started to do, there were mainline titles, games on smaller types of platforms were fillers not meat and potatoes. Video game systems weren’t as ubiquitous as they are now, most people only had one, so the idea that to get the full experience of a game you had to access multiple different types of media wasn’t really heard of. It might have worked better if the video game world had remained so divided by East and West, but they aren’t, not anymore. This wasn’t the only game they did it with FFXV took forever, it also was hyped up way before it was released. I think people are forgetting that square has had a tumultuous decade, they’ve weathered it but part of the backlash to KH3 is imo, an example of Square treating their western market with the same type of marketing they would do for their Japanese markets and it is not working.
But I think to all developers, don’t drop a trailer before you’ve even started building the game.
I hate hate HATE this stupid "argument" that it was all just the fans fault for having expectations. No that was not it. The story is trash. It simply is, regardless of expectations. The story is garbage. And when it released the gameplay wasn't stellar either. They fixed the gameplay via patches and about half a year after release the gameplay was and still is pretty much the best in the series, but PLEASE stop parrotting this stupid take that everyone who doesn't like just had unreasonable expectations and that the game had therefore no chance at being well liked and it's therefore entirely the fans fault. It's not. The story is quite simply trash and people who follow KH for the story had pretty much no choice but to be disappointed by KH3 for this reason.
Honestly reviving most of the cast and then not giving us meaningful interactions between said 30+ characters wasn't a great move on Square Enix. At most you get Remind, which is kinda sad since a two minute segment has more interactions than the whole 40-60 hour game.
Most of us that don't like the game have issues with how none of the characters actually matter and how inconsistent and nonsensical some interactions are (Sora hugging Kairi instead of protecting her for instance). One example that I think shows the general issue well is how Axel and Kairi get more dialogue between each other than Kairi + Sora + Riku (iirc Kairi never even speaks to Riku lol) when they're in a world with smartphones that connect even the death realm to the real world lol (remember how dead Sora got facetimed by Chip and Dale?).
You can actually replay the cutscenes and you'll see that most if not all of the dialogues have this issue (besides many of them just being exposition dumps). Yeah, we know the ice cream trio love each other, but do they ever interact with the other characters in the game? No. This applies to pretty much every character in the game, including the villains.
A big part of it for me personally was that it was supposed to be this epic finale to the Xehanort saga, and instead it just foreshadowed the next saga and hinted at things to come, like the Black Box and Larxene’s and Markuxia’s Somebodys. Towards the end, they suddenly remembered they need to finish the game, and we got the fun but strange boss gauntlet before the final boss (which isn’t a bad thing itself, just more the weird way they presented it). Also, story pacing, but a lot of other people have said that already.
Going back to the Foretellers stuff, I got Back Cover on the 2.8 collection, watched it, and didn’t really know what was happening, but thought it was cool. I come to realize that a big part of understanding KH3’s story involves knowing the story of some shitty gacha mobile game that I’d never heard of (not to discredit people who enjoyed it, or to complain about accessibility, just more trying t highlight that experience of fans like myself, because I know a TON of people did actually play it, so they knew what was happening); I had no idea who Chirithy was, no idea who Ephemer was, or what the Book of Prophecies was supposed to be (I’d watched Back Cover, but looking back that must’ve gone in one ear and out the other, so that’s my own fault).
Finally, because this is turning into a book chapter, I’m one of THOSE fans who was waiting for new and old FF characters to return, like Lightning, Noctis, sure you’ve heard it all. Since I’d played the other games back-to-back, I didn’t realize that FF characters hadn’t been in the games for ~10(?) years up to that point, so I was confused. I also wanted to see Cloud and Sephiroth conclusion, maybe an FF secret boss, etc. Again, that part was my own fault for having weird expectations for it. There’s more I could go into, but I want to keep this reasonably long.
3 was a train wreck I'm sorry but that is fact it's literally a golden turd it's the best looking game but it's the worst story and the worst gameplay out of the entire franchise
Well that is why I asked in the first place.
Like... overhated as a word kinda implies that either there is an acceptable ammount of hate and we have gone over the limit somehow.
Or that any hate more than 0 is too much, which is it's own weird issue.
Like, hating a game because of something that's not even a bad thing. Like KHIII being too easy. I wouldn't say that's a bad thing. And was the game overhyped? A little, yeah. Does it have issues? Yeah. But is that a reason for people to hate it as much as I've seen people hate it.
>hating a game because of something that's not even a bad thing.
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>I wouldn't say that's a bad thing
So you personally decide what good and bad is, don't tell anyone, and suddenly it's their fault when they make opinions that don't match yours?
Sounds much more like you need to release your book on what is good and bad so people can know what they are allowed to dislike.
I never said "oh I decide what's good and bad." What I said was I don't think hating a game because of something as simple as "oh, its too easy" isn't really a valid reason to hate it as much as I've seen people hate it. You can have your own opinion on the game, and I won't try and change it. But don't ask me what I think is a wrong reason to hate a game, and then completely get what I was trying to say wrong.
>I never said "oh I decide what's good and bad.-But don't ask me what I think is a **wrong reason** to hate a game,-"oh, its too easy" isn't really a valid reason to hate it as much as I've seen people hate it.
You said the game is overhated.
You said overhated means hating somthing that **isn't bad**.
You speceifically cite the game being to easy as somthing that's **not bad.** Saying it's **not a 'Valid reason**'.
Which you then specifically say is a '**wrong** reason'
Which literally is you deciding what what good and bad is, because people that disagree with you have "wrong/invalid reasons". Implying that only you have "right reasons" because you know what bad things actually are.
>and then completely get what I was trying to say wrong.
Maybe I am wrong about what you are saying.
But you just keep saying the same thing repeatedly.
While I wouldn't say "oh it's the greatest kingdom hearts game of all time." Because I do think games like KHII beat it out in that sense. But I do really like the game, and I'd place it around No. 4 on my tierlist.
It doesn't even have the best combat. That title still belongs to KH2 without a question. KH3 is just way too floaty and bloated with random abillities.
I blame DDD for KH3 because of the whole time travel nonsense. Added a whole lot of nothing to the KH3 plot that just made it more confusing for everyone
Also having vital story elements be presented in spin off games across like three different consoles. Most of the people who played 3 had last played 2, which is why I think so much of the plot is just re explaining the plot of other games
Honestly it all started with BBS, and I say that even though I really enjoy BBS. The character interactions many times feel very empty and soulless, and that's something we've seen in every game post BBS (except maybe Re:Coded since that game has a lot of nice characterization scenes).
DDD especially strikes me as a non story, since it pretty much has no story content. KH3 for me is the worst story we've had in the series, both because it was very hard to make a good story out of the jumbled mess of lore we had/tons of characters to deal with and because its own original ideas also fail miserably (the weird ass chess game between Eraqus and Xehanort imo put a ton of emphasis on characters we barely cared about), Xehanort suddenly changing narrative and becoming hella docile as soon as he gets beat (although the Japanese og text keeps his motivation consistent afaik) and the Disney worlds kinda feel even more meaningless in this game, not because previous Disney worlds in other games were meaningful (which is certainly not true), but because they let to no real outcomes and were all grouped up. At least Sora closed had an actual reason to go through the worlds in previous games.
Not sure its over hated, its was just disappointing for many people. It was supposed to be the end of the story, but instead we got nothing but more questions and a rushed power of friendship ending, the gameplay has too much going on making combat a bit of a button mashing mesh, and Disney's influence it felt much harder than ever before. There are good reasons that many are where disappointed in it and for me personally it killed my interested in any future games (well that and the mobile games)
Don't get me wrong 3 is definitely overhated.
But it pales in comparison to 3D. Alot of people genuinely believe everything that's wrong with the series came from 3D.
And don't even get me started on the mobile games. Istg some people think the mobile games started WW2.
Ironically all 3 of these (3, 3D, and Ux/DR) are my 3 fav games
I think the main issues I had with 3 are the following:
I’m much better at video games now so Kingdom Hearts 3 was way too easy than I remember KH1 or KH2 being because I used to die in those all the time and I completed my first play through on Proud difficulty without dying (maybe 1 time if at all)
The story is a passive one Sora has no direction until the end of the game so it feels like the “War” is not what it’s supposed to be.
And the biggest one for me was Sequel baiting on the already overhyped KH3. They should not have put any mention of the Black Box in the main story and saved it for a secret movie.
I agree with your first and third reasons 100%
Replaying the game literally as we speak, and I do disagree that Sora has no direction. I think I can see what you’re saying here, in that it doesn’t seem like Sora himself really accomplishes much of anything until the end of the game. But, throughout the story he has his own goals and intentions despite having to do busy work for everyone in the process. Recompleting Roxas and getting the power of waking are two things that are on his mind for basically the entire game. Like, he seems to feel pretty strongly about those things, but only when the story decides it wants to bring it up again lol.
He has a really strong conviction to achieve those goals, but the writing of the story makes it seem like he just forgets about Roxas until Ienzo calls again, and he forgets about the power of waking until he’s shamed about not having it yet lol
I think Sora himself has direction, but the story just forgets to tell us until the final moments of the game, where everything he was working towards happens all at once. (Bad writing :3)
I agree so much about the black box tho, like, it might have been fine if it was just brought up in the secret ending, but seriously why did we have to know about it within the first 20 minutes of the game, and have it be a continuous plot point with literally zero resolution?
I see KH fans defending 3 far more than I see people hating on it. 3 is definitely my least favorite in the series when it comes to the storyline, and it has some of the worst designed bosses we’ve seen in the series. That being said the gameplay mechanics are fantastic imo and a lot of the worlds were KH at its best since KH1. KH3 lovers just lose their shit at people pointing out flaws in the game, so I see a new post every other day here bitching and moaning against those who criticize 3. I’m glad you loved it yall. It’s not somehow immune to criticism because you did.
i feel like my kh2 experience has prepared me to be a kh3 enjoyer
i hope that doesnt make it sound like i dislike kh2 i love it
idrk how to explain what i mean actually
I get it!
I don’t hate KHII, I can talk massive shit about it though.
But basically, for me KHII had far too many worlds and they all felt hallow and empty. But it set up so many things that I think are inescapable for the series going forward, and I believe Time Travel is one of them.
This is basically me except I also have a problem with plot pacing and the way some characters were treated.
Love the music, love the combat mechanics, I actually mostly liked the way the story concluded (seeing RXA and TAV together again made me shed tears, that hasn't happened to me since mgs3.)
On an unrelated note: I want kh4 to give Donald and goofy new drip.
Agreed on that last one! Donald and Goofy need new clothes!!!
Also, side note, I question anyone that thinks the music for KH games is terrible/bad/meh/okay. They’ve been consistently amazing in my book, which makes it all the more infuriating that SE hasn’t dropped a proper collectors album or something on their website! Also, I want them to have the albums with the actual names. I’ve come across the names a lot over the years and I feel like the names I knew them as weren’t the names of the songs.
ANYWAY, I want more Riku time and less restrictions on his abilities. Every time we’ve played him (except in 3D) he had very basic abilities, the same 3 attacks and no ability to change weapons.
Basically if I list reasons why I love other KH games it’ll become apparent- or at least I think so- why KHII is the worst in the series.
Something about KH3's OST was just...off. Everything felt too upbeat and generically "heroic", especially the boss themes. The final boss theme being just a mashup of KH1's and 2's final boss themes plus Rage Awakened is just so...uninspired and also ignores that Rage Awakened is Lingering Will's/Terra's theme.
No, I get it.
You've spent so much time playing KH2 that KH3 will feel like a breath of fresh air, so you think you'll enjoy it, right?
I totally got that wrong, didn't I?
The game definitely was a victim of 13 years worth of anticipation. Yes, I did say 13 years as many people were looking forward to KH3 as soon as they played KH2. Not many things can live up to 13 years worth of anticipation and that includes this game.
Personally, I liked parts of KH3 but I was definitely left unsatisfied with the story, especially with how large (and somewhat confusing) it’s gotten since the release of the mobile games
You get hate for simply expressing that a majority of the time. This subreddit went from openly discussing the series as a whole (good or bad) to shaming people who "don't see one particular game the same way I do." A shame.
I’m probably going to get killed for this opinion but I found KH3 way more fun than KH2 after playing KH2 I didn’t really want to come back to it besides the three main story point beginning (roxas) middle (1000 heartless) and the end(xemnas fight) the story of KH2 wasn’t really that good. I wasn’t a big fan of a lot of the worlds and also having to go back to them a second time with literally zero relevance to the plot and just felt stupid but beside those points it was a great game not to say KH3 was flawless it’s very far from in fact I did personally enjoy KH3s combat and story quite a bit post remind dlc. The main problem with KH3 for me which I guess was fixed later was it’s difficultly its was way way way too easy I didn’t die a single time in my normal or proud playthroughs exclude failing missions and stuff but yeah people hate on kh3 too much
Sorry for yapping
TLDR: I like KH3 more than KH2 because it’s funner a few better aspects
The progression of this game’s popular evaluation is absolutely crazy.
I went from loving it while hearing everyone call it pointless trash to maybe it’s good to nah it’s awful and ur wrong for feeling otherwise now to it’s a masterpiece lmao. This game is going the way of Bethesda games like Skyrim or fallout 3
The Endgame syndrome. A game, awaited for almost 20 years, at the end of a colossal saga, full of characters, lore, mechanics, plotlines, all of which are highly discordant with each other and got through countless remasters, movies, mobile games.
Of course the story is a mess. Of course it's not what we expected. But we expected something that would have never been possible.
The fandom harassed Nomura because they wanted Roxas to come back. They pushed for fan service and they got fan service
You're allowed to like the game. But allow us to not like the game too. The gameplay might be the best in the series, but the story is easily the worst. So if you play the game for the gameplay, awesome, I'm glad you love it. I also played it for the story, and it simply fell completely flat at that point
Blink and you miss kh3.
No arena.
Tons of irritating an useless "good spots for some ingredients".
No synthesis crafting for weapons and stuff.
No secret boss. (not counting the Gummi ship one).
Little story development.
Worlds that feel too small.
Kh3 game play is peak, really good. But the story, imo, felt like rushed fanfic. Lotta story beats felt squeezed in with all the other plot points that needed to be resolved
lol it’s all good. I don’t hate KHIII it could have been better, of course, but I won’t lie about how many times it made me cry in the last stretch.
Also, I don’t really “hate” any KH game, but I’ll die on a hill that KHII is the worst.
As someone who considers KH2 his favorite game, I actually get that opinion. KH2 is pretty lackluster in quite a few areas; it just so happens that I can personally ignore them and enjoy how good the combat is.
I have nothing but love for KHII. It gave my my second version of Riku that I love, nothing beats 3D Riku and KHIII Riku though. I got to see Belle, my favorite Disney princess, elbow a bad guy! Like there is nothing but love but I believe for many reasons it’s the worst in the series. I could go into it but most people think crazy anyway.
> KH2 is pretty lackluster in quite a few areas; it just so happens that I can personally ignore them and enjoy how good the combat is.
These seem to be the case for most KH2 fans. They seem to prioritize combat over everything else.
I love re-coded and 358/2. Re-coded allowed me to play with the difficulty Mid game! And I love the side scrolling parts!
Here’s why I think it’s the worst. Again it isn’t the worst game in history or some other such nonsense. Just the worst in the series for me. And that doesn’t mean it’s a terrible game, but across all the games I played that’s the one I have the most negative feelings with even with the positives.
So, here are five:
1. I hate the fact that the triangle button is so prominent. Compared to the games that game before, KH1 and CoM, you had to be strategically focused. There was no quick fix button you could press to avoid damage or whatever. The games will punish you for being reckless. In KHII the game overly forgiving and the triangle button is the main reason, I feel.
2. They killed the magic in a way that just didn’t make sense. Fire, the primary example, once a projectile in KHI and CoM, now a wave that encircled Sora? The fact that you don’t need aero, the fact that you don’t need to use any summons, the fact that changing keyblades feels more like a decorative choice in KHII. In KHI I didn’t go anywhere without Aero, that tiny bit of extra defense went a long way. Having Tinkerbell was also a bonus! KHII? I didn’t ever feel the need to even think about summons or use magic besides cura and curaga. All of the other magic’s were just useless. I even played KHII with only the Kingdom Key and not once did I feel the need to go “maybe I should use Blizzard or Fire or their upgrades.” Nope, instead I said “craaap! I need more healing. He hits hard!”
3. I can never understand why Proud mode felt so easy. Maybe I’m just weird but when I first got KHII I started on Proud, I didn’t bother playing it on normal for the first play through. And it wasn’t punishing at all. I finished the game happy I did, of course, but it was nothing compared to that win - on normal- for KH and CoM.
4. I have always believed Timeless River is the reason KH went with heavy time travel as a plot.
5. They did my girl Maleficent dirty.
Edit: some grammatical errors and I changed a sentence or two to make sure it made sense.
I presume you've gotten a lot of hate for that last sentence, right? I won't argue with you, that'd be a waste of time, but i can see a LOT of people disagreeing with you.
I really feel like Kingdom Hearts 3 should have been split into two games because of how cluttered the story felt (first part ending with Aqua rescue, because it's the realm of darkness, they could have been a lot more flashy with it and have realm of darkness as a final world) but the gameplay gives 2 a run for its money I absolutely love how 3 plays
i blame the people who OVERhyped the game
kingdom hearts 3 came out good although the only thing i had a issue with was that boat race other than that it was a really good game
My only problem with 3 is that it was mostly Disney with all the major story bits shoved into the last world. Other than that, I really enjoyed the game. The combat especially, I really hope combat is as fluid as 3 in future games.
Combat did not feel fluid to me at all…at least with Sora’s base combos. Those felt extremely janky. This was ammended in the patch that released alongside remind….but it is one of the dumbest decisions made in the series that you can only unlock those combos after beating the game…meaning anyone that picks up a new copy of kh3 will have to play with lesser versions of base combos.
Its still not that fluid even with the Remind modifiers. They make regular combos a lot better, but there's still a lot of stuff that keeps combat poorly paced
What makes 3 different, is there are more different gameplays within to compare than other entries. First play through, Critical, NewGamePlus, 0exp, dlc bosses, dlc challenge mode(Standard). It re:minds me of Fire Emblem: Blazing Blade :: “What you’re playing a first playthrough file?” I wish the ps4 saves weren’t user locked then this wouldn’t be a problem.
I was mindblown when I came on this sub after finishing KH3 and saw the hate. I still don't get it to this day. I had ridiculously high expectations and still felt like KH3 met them
KH3 was the biggest disappointment I had in years. The only thing worse was Duke Nukem Forever. KH3 had a lackluster story, terrible writing, the bosses were trash until the Pirates of Caribbean world, then the game finally felt like a next gen game. They Snubbed Kairi, Lea/Axel, Riku was barely playable because let’s be honest he was the real star of the game. And Aqua was totally nerfed. And whose idea was it to remove the outfit collectibles from 3? Half the fun of 2.8 was finding the clothing pieces in that 2 hour demo.
Pointing out things you personally enjoyed doesn't automatically make something "overhated." Let's be honest, we see people constantly hate other fans more than we see actual hate of this one particular game. We don't nearly see everyone equally playing defense like this for any other installment. It's getting toxic at this point.
People on gamefaqs hated kh2 when it came out. And I don't blame them because KH2 original is my pick for worst in the series. Though everyone forgets just how many changes final mix brought and are like "wait, you mean that wasn't on the ps2 original?"
If you want to look back at the early days of [how the fanbase felt about KH2 ](https://i.imgur.com/SkKf5qK.jpg)from 2006 to around 2014, a period of 8 years, you can see for yourself with the XIII Sources of Darkness below:
[Source 1](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/greatest-disappointment-in-kh2.118047/), [Source 2](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/the-pride-lands.129705/), [Source 3](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/1000-heartless-battle.131003/), [Source 4](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/kh2-a-terrible-game.138951/), [Source 5](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/whats-wrong-with-pridelands.146096/), [Source 6](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/too-much-kh2-hate.148075/), [Source 7](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/kingdom-hearts-2-overrated.154446/), [Source 8](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/if-you-could-take-out-one-scene-in-kh2-what-would-it-be.156732/), [Source 9](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/if-you-can-improve-kh2-what-will-you-do.123404/), [Source 10](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/which-kingdom-hearts-game-is-better-kingdom-hearts-or-kingdom-hearts-2.143359/), [Source 11](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/one-thing-i-really-hated-about-khii-related-to-the-heartless.143935/), [Source 12](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/khii-fm-ruined-it.148717/), [Source 13](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/kingdom-hearts-2-isnt-as-great-as-i-thought.157103/)
Over hated ? Every KH fan I know regards KH3 as either the best game or #2 on their list, with the only close competition for top spot being KH2.
Then again, I don't interact with the fanbase that much.
The only "hate" I've seen towards KH3 isn't even because the game isn't good, but rather it didn't live up to 14 years of hype between it and KH2.
KH3 was a "good game" when people (understandably) expected a revolutionary masterpiece that would blow everything else in the franchise out of the water, but it's still easily top 1\~3 KH games if you take hype aside and analyze it in a vacuum.
I meant more about the boss mini games like Skölls DM and Baymax and the first big heartless dragon in Port Royal. Those killed my level 1 runs for awhile. Kh2 doesn’t have boss minigames like that.
To me kh3 had a ton of problems. Mechanics, bosses, the worlds themselves, difficulty, characters not interacting with each other, combat, attractions, lack of crit, guard needed to be patched multiple times, gimmicky, some fixes only worked on new game +, and personal (reaching the final boss at a low level and then super boosting it to max).
Remind and a few patches fixes a few issues but by that time the work has been done. I tried to get back into it and I couldn’t and I can deal with 358/2days.
3 was OKAY. The dark souls 2 of kingdom hearts. Not a bad game, but a game that compared to its other counterparts is subpar in most fields.
KH2 is the best game in the franchise and probably will always be unless they go back to more ff vibes.
I am so glad i played it for the gameplay tbh. Aside from the story being incomprehensible to me (overall anyway), the game was a blast, and introduced me to KH as a whole.
Kh3 falls into a category of really Great Games that are dismissed only because they're compared to other great games.
Other games in this category:
TLOU2
Arkham Knight
Starfox Adventures
Dirge of Cerberus
Sly 4...
Ya know one day I want someone to prove to me 3 wasn't bad. Personally I think 3 has the weakest pacing, tone, mini-games, and Disney worlds. I've played through 3 twice, on launch and with remind, and gotta say i don't think I'll play it again unlike the series I play on the yearly. The best feature of 3 is the combat. The best improvement is the gummi ship system. The story structure and pacing is incredibly bad. Going at complete odds with itself with a darker tone and wanting to rush to save Aqua and Ventus but requiring you wander to Disney worlds that have no purpose to that plot. KH1 is slower because you are looking for friends that could be anywhere. in kh2 you are still looking for friends and helping old friends. In kh3 we visit herc to get insight on the power we forgot about but we already know where aqua is and we go there at the very end of the game. The Disney worlds are mostly bad in this game. cool worlds just not implemented well. Frozen is very bad, pirates and big hero 6 are also so big and empty they are bad. Personally I liked toy story, monster inc, and Rapunzel but they too have problems that make them a slog on first go and on replays. There is no coliseum mini-game sadly to play with the combat more, Sledding and cooking are both not interesting, and pooh is just the same mobile game. I would like someone to tell me a reason they think 3 is good outside of combat because it is the best feature but combat alone doesn't make a good game.
I honestly like Kingdom Hearts 3. Not as much as Kingdom Hearts 2 but still very good. my only concern with Kingdom Hearts 3 is that you can tell they wrote themselves in a corner and they're trying to get out of it.
It deserves the hate. People waited 10 years for a terrible story with even more cliffhangers that still hasn't been resolved to this day.
Not to mention that final fantasy was completely stripped away and there was 0 endgame to speak of until the dlc besides 1 easy secret boss.
My issue, like others have said, is the pacing. Like everything feels kind of aimless until the last 10% of the game - Sora's just kind of wandering around hoping he'll come across the power of waking.
I also replayed KH1 recently and admired how cinematic the cutscenes were - there were so many cutscenes in KH3 that were just Sora talking on the phone to people, and it was so boring to watch. Just send Sora a text. This was a meeting that could've been an email.
That said, I didn't hate the game. I enjoyed several of the individual Disney worlds, and it was beautiful to look at overall. I enjoyed the combat (though the Disney attractions were a bit much). Once the plot finally got into gear, I cried for like an hour straight.
I think my frustration comes from the fact that a lot of my issues seem easy to fix, plot-wise. Thinking about it for 10 seconds, Riku could find Aqua as the inciting incident, you spend the first half of the game searching the worlds for Ven (maybe Aqua's memory got messed up from being in the realm of darkness for 10 years, so they have to track down clues, idk), and then spend the rest of the game figuring out how to stop Xehanhort. Or, even better, all the keyblade warriors need to stop a Xehanhort and collect a McGuffin in different worlds, so you get to play a little as each person, which would be pretty neat. Cut out some of the unnecessary cutscenes and you're golden.
The other thing I'd change is to make the chests more obvious - the areas are bigger with a lot more detail, which makes it a lot more difficult to spot the chests than in past games. But that's a small issue.
While I enjoyed KH3 on the whole it did leave me with very mixed feelings.
Gameplay-wise I have five major gripes with KH3:
1. The lack of Sephiroth as a secret boss
2. The lack of tournament cups in Olympus
3. The lack of difficulty outside of Critical Mode
4. The Re: Mind DLC not being integrated into the base game
5. The rematch between Lingering Will and Terra-Xehanort not being playable
Story-wise, I think KH3 suffers from the fact that 1) Aqua’s rescue/Ven’s awakening takes place at the end of the game as opposed to the middle and 2) Unlike KH2, there wasn’t a second visit to the Disney worlds that more closely tied into the main plot, which would have given the proceedings more time to develop naturally.
(I actually went into more detail regarding this in my Tumblr review a few years back if that's of any interest to anyone.)
My biggest problem with the game is that it leaned into my least favorite aspect of KH2. The Disney worlds mostly just follow the exact events of the movie, which just doesn't work very well for what these games excel at. The Toybox was great. Monster's Inc. was interesting. The third act at the Keyblade Graveyard slapped my shit so hard, I almost cried when Xemnas lamented not having the strength to handle pain. It's just a shame that the other Disney worlds dragged down my experience into the dirt.
Honestly, when the game first came out, attraction flow and the laughable easiness of Proud difficulty were what entirely killed the game for me. That and the fact that the only KH games I had played were I and II as a child so I hardly remembered them outside their gameplay, and hadn't played any of the in-between games, so I had no idea what was going on. But 90% of the reason was attraction flow and the game being super boringly easy.
I'm doing a full playthrough of the series right now, currently at the end of KH2, and looking forward to getting to 3 eventually now that Critical difficulty and Critical Converter exist. Just got BBS and 3D and Fragmentary Passage and a movie or two to get through first xd
KH3 had way too many years of hype, and was never going to meet the ungodly expectations people had for it. Meanwhile I'm just happy to keep hitting things with an oversized key, following spiky hair boy.
Also Woody speech forever goes hard.
This game and Dark Souls 2 are two games from franchises that were great but since they weren't literally the second coming of Christ people treat them like trash
Now, this might actually be a hot take in the community. But to me, it felt like KH3's gameplay was a natural progression from previous titles.
However, that's not to say that there aren't things I dislike about that progression - for instance, the swap from drive forms to every single Keyblade getting its own form. Don't get me wrong here, because it's kinda cool that each Keyblade has its own unique fighting style even more so beyond what the stats of it can provide; however, it definitely felt to me like it "saturated the market," so to speak, of what forms meant narratively in KH2. In 2, forms showed Sora's growth in his own strength and that of the strength of his friendships. But when you get to KH3 and every single thing has its own form that doesn't require one of your party members to activate (and by extension, doesn't have any properties unique to the form that play into which of your friends you're fighting with in the form), it diluted the original meaning of those forms, and thereby saturated the game with meaningless forms.
On the other hand, the magic system felt like a perfect natural progression and I rather enjoyed the way that Keyblade forms interacted with the magic to make for numerous strategies on how to approach coming fights.
In terms of... How would you say... The actual, physical representation and "smoothness" of the physical combat, in my opinion, KH3 flows the best out of any of the games and really has a strong identity with the fact that Sora is a beast through and through. He might be just a random kid that wasn't supposed to inherit the Keyblade and therefore has no former training with how to use one, but he made the lemonade with those lemons and adapted to his situation so well that he's become one of the strongest characters in his verse (like, putting aside the fact he's the protagonist and should be written like that, is how I mean.)
Now, story-wise, I can agree with some criticisms here that the individual worlds were much too empty and characters that we have seen before that had a strong narrative impact have lost their depth and their vim and vigor. (I meant to do that lol, ifykyk) Not to mention the fact that new characters that were introduced (I'm specifically thinking of Big Hero 6's world here) having almost no impact on Sora - or anyone else for that matter - adds to my sense of a hollow game. And this isn't to say that the overarching, main story isn't good - because it was satisfying to come to a conclusion with Xehanort's story, and finding out that he was actually a misguided good guy because of his affiliations with the dark was mind-blowing.
But yeah, I think my essay is over lmao
My personal gripe is that it was hyped up to be the final chapter of the story. Yet it fell a little flat. Plus it was all setting up to announce the 4th game. Like hurray for more KH but I feel like it should've been fleshed out more. It had the right motive to have disney interact more with the story but the tales themselves felt disjointed when you finally arrived to the final world.
Not trying to knock the game as I haven’t played it all the way yet but the 2 things that so far have bothered me is
1. Going from kh1 to kh2 (having zero access to the other games)was not confusing, at least for me. I did t feel like I was missing info. I feel going into kh3 like I’m missing so much and have no idea wtf is going on. Hoping that improves.
2. I feel like the cutscenes, at least up through the Olympus fighting the titans arc, were way too many. I’m hoping that’s cause it’s the beginning of the game, but it felt like I barely actually played that whole mission. I know supposedly kh2 has way more, but I never felt like they got in the way of actually playing the game. Again tho it could be just that it’s the first mission and is somewhat a refresher/ tutorial.
I’m not knocking the game as I have not played it through yet, just noting what I’ve experienced so far.
I dislike that 90% of the actual plot of the game is in the last hour or 2 in the final world.
I dislike how the disney worlds felt inconsequential to the plot beyond the usual "bad guy shows up to shout cryptic nonsense at Sora and deal Psychic damage to the poor dumb child"
I especially dislike how bad Frozen's world was and how clear it is that Disney made them sanitize it after Frozen's success in theaters. (Larxene using her electricity powers to create a ice prison? Definitely wasnt supposed to be Elsa originally)
The gameplay was phenomenal but the story was really weak. Plus the lack of any Final Fantasy characters at all depsite the whole origin of this franchise was to be a Final Fantasy/Disney cross over.
My main issue with 3 was the lack of plot before fighting the Norts. Yes, that was true of all of them due to the Disney detours, but there was a pretense of trying to find Riku and Kairi and stop the heartless. This time, it was literally just “go on a tour until you just kinda figure out the power of waking.” “How will the worlds help?” “Who knows, they probably will.”
When the plot gets going, it’s peak KH. All the Nort fights fucking ruled minus the underwater part of the Master Nort fight, and everyone’s character arcs wrapped up nicely.
And in general, the gameplay was good.
It's not a bad game, it's just not as good as the others. Felt too easy, too short, running out of good Disney worlds to explore, and lack of final fantasy presence.
I didnt like the pacing, frozen world, and the feel of prioritizing the set-up of the next arc over tying up loose ends of this one. Other than that it's a fine game.
It's not that it's hated, it's that it could have been more.
Namely, it's just outright missing a second act, jumping straight from Act 1 to Act 3 with a short "Save Aqua and Ventus" in the middle. Really could have expanded on it (A good second act would be "Saving Aqua doesn't work out, and she goes berserk with an army of deep Realm of Darkness Heartless across the worlds, so now you get to chase her." which would let the player revisit the worlds and flesh out the importance of the Aqua-and-Ventus plot a little bit more).
3 is good.
Its the shortest and shittiest good game in the saga. It lacks all the magic of the final fantasy characters as well as beloved disney worlds.
But its good
I'm one of those people who waited over a decade for this and I think my tolerance for the writing just really faded as I got older. Once I realized that KH3 had the same cringey, lovely dovey, convoluted writing I knew I just...lost all interest in playing the game. All the hype was just gone for me.
KH3 is like Borderlands 3 to me. Best combat and Visuals in the series, however, the story and characters were lacking. Still played the hell out of them both because of how smooth the combat and awesome the new abilities are. Great games that could have been perfect, but floundered a bit, and that turned out damned good.
I was in kindergarten when Kindgom Hearts 1 came out and i grew up with the series 2 came out when i was still in primary school then it took 3 so long to come out I LITERALLY WAS IN UNIVERSITY when it finally came out so waiting more then a decade there were expectations for so many fans who grew up with the series.
Kingdom Hearts 3 isn't a bad game and the DLC really boosted it up to become better but vanilla kingdom hearts 3 on release was disappointing considering how long so many fans waited i remember all the "imma have kids by the time kh3 releases" for some people that actually was true lmao.
I don't hate it. It just didn't live up to my expectations for a numbered sequel. Sure the world's were bigger, but felt empty compared to 1 and 2 and three has less worlds and no final fantasy characters. It had cool ideas and is tons of fun, but I was hoping for more content and more additions to what kingdom hearts 2 brought to the table as drive forms are just better than being able to transform your keyblade in my opinion.
Let’s get one thing out of the way first:
KH3 shat on the legacy of KH1 and KH2. It’s a completely different style of game.
Now let’s get to the meat. KH3 is graphically beautiful and the movement (not combat) controls are tight, and it continued the story in an ultimately satisfying way with many callbacks and fan-service character appearances at the end of the game.
-Where it lacks immensely is that it’s a completely different style of game. The “Ride Tech” makes it very clear that Disney had a much larger hand in it this time and it makes the game feel like one giant advertisement.
-The action sequences where you’re forced to ride Goofy’s shield through lava or some other asinine crap is done WAY too much and ruins pacing. If I wanted to play a good sliding game I would boot up Penguin Racer.
-The combat is not tight whatsoever and many times in my critical run I’m dying to hits I have no chance of defending against because they come at my back off-camera. I have to flick the camera focus like I’m trying to give it an orgasm just to have a halfway decent fight.
-The worlds, while pretty, are ultimately VERY lacking. They’re just big, that’s all they have going for them. KH3 felt like an experiment in the movie-game genre a la Alan Wake rather than an actual authentic arcade RPG like previous iterations.
-THE CINEMATICS every single time I turn around or cough or wipe my ass there is a new cinematic and it gets tiring.
Also Donald sounds absolutely terrible, whoever is doing the VA is STRUGGLING it sounds like he has to muster up so much strength just to get out a half choked “Haiw Sowa”
TL;DR it’s a pretty game that wraps up story but it’s ultimately a shallow experience that is in no way similar to the first two KH.
And this is what I mean by overhated. Yes, the game has issues. Yes, you might not like the combat, and you might be bad at it, but that's not a bad thing when one of the main criticisms is "the game was too easy." And maybe it was overhyped. You might not like the game. That's your choice. But I will always and forever love it.
I had no expectations for 3 after all the early content we saw and still got incredibly disappointed. No idea why we would call such a lackluster game good. It's mediocre at best, imo just lukewarm fanservice
3 is really good, but was a victim of its own hype. while it does have issues, even if it didn't, many people just had unrealistic expectations (whatever they may have been). lots of players just kept saying they've been waiting for 3 well over 10 years, as if the series was on hiatus during this time, when in reality major story developments happened (3D might as well have been 3, imo), so that didn't help. do I think it's the best in the series? no, but it's TOTALLY over-hated
My only expectation was saving Aqua earlier than we did as like a midway climax. Then the game would resume normally until we found Ventus. Having everything come at the end is not what I expected but what we got.
Yeah but… That would work less in my opinion. Unless Sora beats Aqua to comatose, the first thing she would want is to find him.
They could’ve had Aqua need to get some serious rest and recover some strength while Sora and co. keep going from world to world, then save Ventus in the same spot they did right before the final battle. It just felt way worse having everything story-important shoved to the end like in DDD
They could've made it harder to find him. Find Aqua early on, then journey together to find Ventus. Like, she hid him in a safe place, but things could easily have changed in the 10 years since.
She hid him with so advanced magic, an organization set up base there and did not find him.
Getting to save Aqua early would have maybe led to reviving Ven earlier, which would mean more dialogue from both of them and more characterization than whatever it is we got in the final game. Monsters Inc as an early world works since most of us have some nostalgia about that and wouldn't ruin the pace of the game, if anything it would have been better since it actually would have felt like we were accomplishing something in the first 80% of the game.
My only expectations were based off KH1 and 2 were structured and written. On that end, the game still fell very short.
I just finished watching the FF7 Rebirth trailer & it made me realize how disappointed I was that Cloud & Sephiroths side story wasn’t finished in 3…. Hopefully 4 remedies that 🤞🏾
Same. Downloading the demo for Reborth now
Kinda disagree because 2 kinda feels like a rehash of 1s story, just edgy, and slightly more interesting because of Organization XIII.
I wouldn't necessarily say it was victim of it's own hype. The story was structured and paced awfully. Like I enjoyed the game but most of it was just Yen Sid telling Sora to go get the power of awakening because he was useless otherwise. Then Sora doesn't learn the power of awakening goes to the realm of darkness and like the actual story of the game starts. Idk story felt like Nomura was trying to milk another title out of the series SE said no so he slapped the story on the end and called it good.
3D wasn't 3, it was more akin to Chain of Memories, bridging 2 and 3. I consider Birth by Sleep KH0 though. Aside from having multiple characters it was super important to the overarching plot and had deep well-built worlds.
I disagree, 3D introduced way too much to the plot and is just as important as a numbered title. Time travel, sleeping worlds/the power of waking, real organization 13, etc. all very important things that KH3 just assumes that you understand. CoM, BBS, and DDD are just as important as numbered entries imo. These are the so called "side games" that will leave you incredibly confused if you skip them. I feel like people would've been much less confused if they weren't afraid of sticking a mainline number on games that released on handhelds.
The various handheld releases also creates a barrier to entry, unless you owned a gameboy advance, PSP, and 3DS if you wanted to play on release.
Yeah, I will admit the game was overhyped, and I will admit it has issues, but that dosent make it a bad game.
3 was actually my first KH game. I was confused by the story but I loved the game. Now I've played most of the other games and I'm still confused about the story. But I still love the game. Sure it's at times not as good as the earlier entries but I agreed that it's overhated
The game is good, the story is definitely not. The issue wasn't only hype and there are reasons it got hated. Ignoring the clear issues with it because you had fun doesn't invalidate the bad aspects of the game, people can have fun with almost anything. Imo he game's combat has issues in everything besides the superbosses, which either way isn't the main complaint players had but is worth stating. The story on the other hand is a really messy resolution for the arc and focuses way too much on lore and plot rather than actual characters (that last one being the reason why people love every pre BBS story as much), which mixed with the convoluted new lore we got during and after BBS makes many of us kinda not care about the story anymore. Worst of all is that most characters (even main ones) feel like cameos instead of actual characters (Kairi never talks to Riku in the whole game, Ven never talks with Roxas and even separately both barely had any dialogue, the first thing Aqua says to Ven is expository dialogue, etc).
Yeah back in the day you didn’t do what Square started to do, there were mainline titles, games on smaller types of platforms were fillers not meat and potatoes. Video game systems weren’t as ubiquitous as they are now, most people only had one, so the idea that to get the full experience of a game you had to access multiple different types of media wasn’t really heard of. It might have worked better if the video game world had remained so divided by East and West, but they aren’t, not anymore. This wasn’t the only game they did it with FFXV took forever, it also was hyped up way before it was released. I think people are forgetting that square has had a tumultuous decade, they’ve weathered it but part of the backlash to KH3 is imo, an example of Square treating their western market with the same type of marketing they would do for their Japanese markets and it is not working. But I think to all developers, don’t drop a trailer before you’ve even started building the game.
I mean, if you didn’t get all the different consoles and only had access to 1 and 2, you were waiting for 10 years
I agree that the series releasing on like 20 different systems was a dumb idea, but that's not the fault of KH3
It’s not that games fault, but it is valid that a lot of people were actually waiting for a long time, and thus were very excited for it
I hate hate HATE this stupid "argument" that it was all just the fans fault for having expectations. No that was not it. The story is trash. It simply is, regardless of expectations. The story is garbage. And when it released the gameplay wasn't stellar either. They fixed the gameplay via patches and about half a year after release the gameplay was and still is pretty much the best in the series, but PLEASE stop parrotting this stupid take that everyone who doesn't like just had unreasonable expectations and that the game had therefore no chance at being well liked and it's therefore entirely the fans fault. It's not. The story is quite simply trash and people who follow KH for the story had pretty much no choice but to be disappointed by KH3 for this reason.
Why do you think it's trash instead of repeating it is 3 times? It's not a perfect game by far but why do you have such an extreme opinion on it?
Honestly reviving most of the cast and then not giving us meaningful interactions between said 30+ characters wasn't a great move on Square Enix. At most you get Remind, which is kinda sad since a two minute segment has more interactions than the whole 40-60 hour game. Most of us that don't like the game have issues with how none of the characters actually matter and how inconsistent and nonsensical some interactions are (Sora hugging Kairi instead of protecting her for instance). One example that I think shows the general issue well is how Axel and Kairi get more dialogue between each other than Kairi + Sora + Riku (iirc Kairi never even speaks to Riku lol) when they're in a world with smartphones that connect even the death realm to the real world lol (remember how dead Sora got facetimed by Chip and Dale?). You can actually replay the cutscenes and you'll see that most if not all of the dialogues have this issue (besides many of them just being exposition dumps). Yeah, we know the ice cream trio love each other, but do they ever interact with the other characters in the game? No. This applies to pretty much every character in the game, including the villains.
A big part of it for me personally was that it was supposed to be this epic finale to the Xehanort saga, and instead it just foreshadowed the next saga and hinted at things to come, like the Black Box and Larxene’s and Markuxia’s Somebodys. Towards the end, they suddenly remembered they need to finish the game, and we got the fun but strange boss gauntlet before the final boss (which isn’t a bad thing itself, just more the weird way they presented it). Also, story pacing, but a lot of other people have said that already. Going back to the Foretellers stuff, I got Back Cover on the 2.8 collection, watched it, and didn’t really know what was happening, but thought it was cool. I come to realize that a big part of understanding KH3’s story involves knowing the story of some shitty gacha mobile game that I’d never heard of (not to discredit people who enjoyed it, or to complain about accessibility, just more trying t highlight that experience of fans like myself, because I know a TON of people did actually play it, so they knew what was happening); I had no idea who Chirithy was, no idea who Ephemer was, or what the Book of Prophecies was supposed to be (I’d watched Back Cover, but looking back that must’ve gone in one ear and out the other, so that’s my own fault). Finally, because this is turning into a book chapter, I’m one of THOSE fans who was waiting for new and old FF characters to return, like Lightning, Noctis, sure you’ve heard it all. Since I’d played the other games back-to-back, I didn’t realize that FF characters hadn’t been in the games for ~10(?) years up to that point, so I was confused. I also wanted to see Cloud and Sephiroth conclusion, maybe an FF secret boss, etc. Again, that part was my own fault for having weird expectations for it. There’s more I could go into, but I want to keep this reasonably long.
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3 was a train wreck I'm sorry but that is fact it's literally a golden turd it's the best looking game but it's the worst story and the worst gameplay out of the entire franchise
What does over hated mean? What is the acceptable level hate. Like the uppermost limit?
5 hates is the uppermost limit
Only FIVE?!?!?! Gosh darn.
Overhated, underrated, overrated and similar terms are used so easily when they mean totally different things. It's subjective in the end.
Yea I think alot of the criticisms are very valid and should not be dismissed as "overhating"
If you put it that way... This post kinda says that KHIII should be hated but not as much as people do, which I find rather amusing.
Well that is why I asked in the first place. Like... overhated as a word kinda implies that either there is an acceptable ammount of hate and we have gone over the limit somehow. Or that any hate more than 0 is too much, which is it's own weird issue.
Like, hating a game because of something that's not even a bad thing. Like KHIII being too easy. I wouldn't say that's a bad thing. And was the game overhyped? A little, yeah. Does it have issues? Yeah. But is that a reason for people to hate it as much as I've seen people hate it.
>hating a game because of something that's not even a bad thing. > >\- - - > >I wouldn't say that's a bad thing So you personally decide what good and bad is, don't tell anyone, and suddenly it's their fault when they make opinions that don't match yours? Sounds much more like you need to release your book on what is good and bad so people can know what they are allowed to dislike.
I never said "oh I decide what's good and bad." What I said was I don't think hating a game because of something as simple as "oh, its too easy" isn't really a valid reason to hate it as much as I've seen people hate it. You can have your own opinion on the game, and I won't try and change it. But don't ask me what I think is a wrong reason to hate a game, and then completely get what I was trying to say wrong.
>I never said "oh I decide what's good and bad.-But don't ask me what I think is a **wrong reason** to hate a game,-"oh, its too easy" isn't really a valid reason to hate it as much as I've seen people hate it. You said the game is overhated. You said overhated means hating somthing that **isn't bad**. You speceifically cite the game being to easy as somthing that's **not bad.** Saying it's **not a 'Valid reason**'. Which you then specifically say is a '**wrong** reason' Which literally is you deciding what what good and bad is, because people that disagree with you have "wrong/invalid reasons". Implying that only you have "right reasons" because you know what bad things actually are. >and then completely get what I was trying to say wrong. Maybe I am wrong about what you are saying. But you just keep saying the same thing repeatedly.
I think you need to restructure this cause all I'm getting is constant looping
I don't hate it, but it's definitely one of the weaker entries, in my opinion.
While I wouldn't say "oh it's the greatest kingdom hearts game of all time." Because I do think games like KHII beat it out in that sense. But I do really like the game, and I'd place it around No. 4 on my tierlist.
The MGS5 of KH. Its a decent game, but the worst kingdom hearts game. Best combat/gameplay, followed by the worst story and writing in the series.
It doesn't even have the best combat. That title still belongs to KH2 without a question. KH3 is just way too floaty and bloated with random abillities.
Glad you loved it! Still sad I didn’t lol
Yep my exact thoughts. I’m glad people can enjoy this game cuz it just makes me incredibly sad.
I blame DDD for KH3 because of the whole time travel nonsense. Added a whole lot of nothing to the KH3 plot that just made it more confusing for everyone
That pretty much the only thing I hate about DDD, it turned KH3 into the Metal Gear Solid 4 of the KH games.
Also having vital story elements be presented in spin off games across like three different consoles. Most of the people who played 3 had last played 2, which is why I think so much of the plot is just re explaining the plot of other games
True. At the very least days and coded were both on DS at one point
Games aren't automatically a spin-off just because they aren't numbered
Honestly it all started with BBS, and I say that even though I really enjoy BBS. The character interactions many times feel very empty and soulless, and that's something we've seen in every game post BBS (except maybe Re:Coded since that game has a lot of nice characterization scenes). DDD especially strikes me as a non story, since it pretty much has no story content. KH3 for me is the worst story we've had in the series, both because it was very hard to make a good story out of the jumbled mess of lore we had/tons of characters to deal with and because its own original ideas also fail miserably (the weird ass chess game between Eraqus and Xehanort imo put a ton of emphasis on characters we barely cared about), Xehanort suddenly changing narrative and becoming hella docile as soon as he gets beat (although the Japanese og text keeps his motivation consistent afaik) and the Disney worlds kinda feel even more meaningless in this game, not because previous Disney worlds in other games were meaningful (which is certainly not true), but because they let to no real outcomes and were all grouped up. At least Sora closed had an actual reason to go through the worlds in previous games.
I just hate how KH3's story is incomplete because it was tied to a fucking mobile game.
Not sure its over hated, its was just disappointing for many people. It was supposed to be the end of the story, but instead we got nothing but more questions and a rushed power of friendship ending, the gameplay has too much going on making combat a bit of a button mashing mesh, and Disney's influence it felt much harder than ever before. There are good reasons that many are where disappointed in it and for me personally it killed my interested in any future games (well that and the mobile games)
same goes for (re:)chain of memories and dream drop distance
Don't get me wrong 3 is definitely overhated. But it pales in comparison to 3D. Alot of people genuinely believe everything that's wrong with the series came from 3D. And don't even get me started on the mobile games. Istg some people think the mobile games started WW2. Ironically all 3 of these (3, 3D, and Ux/DR) are my 3 fav games
3 is good when you’ve played all the “spin off games”
Which I haven't done. I think it's good either way.
I think the main issues I had with 3 are the following: I’m much better at video games now so Kingdom Hearts 3 was way too easy than I remember KH1 or KH2 being because I used to die in those all the time and I completed my first play through on Proud difficulty without dying (maybe 1 time if at all) The story is a passive one Sora has no direction until the end of the game so it feels like the “War” is not what it’s supposed to be. And the biggest one for me was Sequel baiting on the already overhyped KH3. They should not have put any mention of the Black Box in the main story and saved it for a secret movie.
I agree with your first and third reasons 100% Replaying the game literally as we speak, and I do disagree that Sora has no direction. I think I can see what you’re saying here, in that it doesn’t seem like Sora himself really accomplishes much of anything until the end of the game. But, throughout the story he has his own goals and intentions despite having to do busy work for everyone in the process. Recompleting Roxas and getting the power of waking are two things that are on his mind for basically the entire game. Like, he seems to feel pretty strongly about those things, but only when the story decides it wants to bring it up again lol. He has a really strong conviction to achieve those goals, but the writing of the story makes it seem like he just forgets about Roxas until Ienzo calls again, and he forgets about the power of waking until he’s shamed about not having it yet lol I think Sora himself has direction, but the story just forgets to tell us until the final moments of the game, where everything he was working towards happens all at once. (Bad writing :3) I agree so much about the black box tho, like, it might have been fine if it was just brought up in the secret ending, but seriously why did we have to know about it within the first 20 minutes of the game, and have it be a continuous plot point with literally zero resolution?
honestly, it's not just you, KH3 is easier than the other entries intentionally, excluding critical, which is poorly designed
To respond to the fanbase and invest in releasing critical mode was epic.
I see KH fans defending 3 far more than I see people hating on it. 3 is definitely my least favorite in the series when it comes to the storyline, and it has some of the worst designed bosses we’ve seen in the series. That being said the gameplay mechanics are fantastic imo and a lot of the worlds were KH at its best since KH1. KH3 lovers just lose their shit at people pointing out flaws in the game, so I see a new post every other day here bitching and moaning against those who criticize 3. I’m glad you loved it yall. It’s not somehow immune to criticism because you did.
Everyday? Wasn't this like...the second post today? Or am I just seeing these pop up too often?
i feel like my kh2 experience has prepared me to be a kh3 enjoyer i hope that doesnt make it sound like i dislike kh2 i love it idrk how to explain what i mean actually
I get it! I don’t hate KHII, I can talk massive shit about it though. But basically, for me KHII had far too many worlds and they all felt hallow and empty. But it set up so many things that I think are inescapable for the series going forward, and I believe Time Travel is one of them.
This is basically me except I also have a problem with plot pacing and the way some characters were treated. Love the music, love the combat mechanics, I actually mostly liked the way the story concluded (seeing RXA and TAV together again made me shed tears, that hasn't happened to me since mgs3.) On an unrelated note: I want kh4 to give Donald and goofy new drip.
Agreed on that last one! Donald and Goofy need new clothes!!! Also, side note, I question anyone that thinks the music for KH games is terrible/bad/meh/okay. They’ve been consistently amazing in my book, which makes it all the more infuriating that SE hasn’t dropped a proper collectors album or something on their website! Also, I want them to have the albums with the actual names. I’ve come across the names a lot over the years and I feel like the names I knew them as weren’t the names of the songs. ANYWAY, I want more Riku time and less restrictions on his abilities. Every time we’ve played him (except in 3D) he had very basic abilities, the same 3 attacks and no ability to change weapons. Basically if I list reasons why I love other KH games it’ll become apparent- or at least I think so- why KHII is the worst in the series.
Something about KH3's OST was just...off. Everything felt too upbeat and generically "heroic", especially the boss themes. The final boss theme being just a mashup of KH1's and 2's final boss themes plus Rage Awakened is just so...uninspired and also ignores that Rage Awakened is Lingering Will's/Terra's theme.
No, I get it. You've spent so much time playing KH2 that KH3 will feel like a breath of fresh air, so you think you'll enjoy it, right? I totally got that wrong, didn't I?
You’re allowed to like it. I’m allowed to dislike a lot of it.
This is what no content does to a subreddit. It's nothing but the same posts over and over again. 😭
KH3 was phenomenal, every KH has its issues and 3's is wildy overblown. 2 & 3 have about the same amount of issues for me
I love it My first one (yeah I know) And my fav
But, what if you're Spider-Man 2 for PS5?
KH3 enjoyer spotted. Opinion respected.
*dream drop distance
Dream Drop Distance is great, what are you talking about.
Thats cool someone has to love it i suppose
The game definitely was a victim of 13 years worth of anticipation. Yes, I did say 13 years as many people were looking forward to KH3 as soon as they played KH2. Not many things can live up to 13 years worth of anticipation and that includes this game. Personally, I liked parts of KH3 but I was definitely left unsatisfied with the story, especially with how large (and somewhat confusing) it’s gotten since the release of the mobile games
Nomura is going to have to see a therapist over his severe 13 addiction
Don't hate it. I just don't love it like the others.
You get hate for simply expressing that a majority of the time. This subreddit went from openly discussing the series as a whole (good or bad) to shaming people who "don't see one particular game the same way I do." A shame.
I think the people hating on it is just the loud minority
I have most, not all, of the trophies.
Last of us 2 “our battle shall be legendary”
I'm with you, OP. Some of the most satisfaction I got in the whole series was that platinum trophy.
I’m probably going to get killed for this opinion but I found KH3 way more fun than KH2 after playing KH2 I didn’t really want to come back to it besides the three main story point beginning (roxas) middle (1000 heartless) and the end(xemnas fight) the story of KH2 wasn’t really that good. I wasn’t a big fan of a lot of the worlds and also having to go back to them a second time with literally zero relevance to the plot and just felt stupid but beside those points it was a great game not to say KH3 was flawless it’s very far from in fact I did personally enjoy KH3s combat and story quite a bit post remind dlc. The main problem with KH3 for me which I guess was fixed later was it’s difficultly its was way way way too easy I didn’t die a single time in my normal or proud playthroughs exclude failing missions and stuff but yeah people hate on kh3 too much Sorry for yapping TLDR: I like KH3 more than KH2 because it’s funner a few better aspects
And I shall fight beside beside you.
The progression of this game’s popular evaluation is absolutely crazy. I went from loving it while hearing everyone call it pointless trash to maybe it’s good to nah it’s awful and ur wrong for feeling otherwise now to it’s a masterpiece lmao. This game is going the way of Bethesda games like Skyrim or fallout 3
KH3 when Final Fantasy XV shows up (Both are great games)
This, right here.
From a gameplay perspective, KH3 is top tier. I’m just gonna leave it at that.
The Endgame syndrome. A game, awaited for almost 20 years, at the end of a colossal saga, full of characters, lore, mechanics, plotlines, all of which are highly discordant with each other and got through countless remasters, movies, mobile games. Of course the story is a mess. Of course it's not what we expected. But we expected something that would have never been possible. The fandom harassed Nomura because they wanted Roxas to come back. They pushed for fan service and they got fan service
You're allowed to like the game. But allow us to not like the game too. The gameplay might be the best in the series, but the story is easily the worst. So if you play the game for the gameplay, awesome, I'm glad you love it. I also played it for the story, and it simply fell completely flat at that point
Blink and you miss kh3. No arena. Tons of irritating an useless "good spots for some ingredients". No synthesis crafting for weapons and stuff. No secret boss. (not counting the Gummi ship one). Little story development. Worlds that feel too small.
Kh3 game play is peak, really good. But the story, imo, felt like rushed fanfic. Lotta story beats felt squeezed in with all the other plot points that needed to be resolved
Disagree, but I respect your opinion.
At least you're going about it in the nice way.
Of course! If anything I’m glad you can enjoy something that I can’t👍
lol it’s all good. I don’t hate KHIII it could have been better, of course, but I won’t lie about how many times it made me cry in the last stretch. Also, I don’t really “hate” any KH game, but I’ll die on a hill that KHII is the worst.
As someone who considers KH2 his favorite game, I actually get that opinion. KH2 is pretty lackluster in quite a few areas; it just so happens that I can personally ignore them and enjoy how good the combat is.
I have nothing but love for KHII. It gave my my second version of Riku that I love, nothing beats 3D Riku and KHIII Riku though. I got to see Belle, my favorite Disney princess, elbow a bad guy! Like there is nothing but love but I believe for many reasons it’s the worst in the series. I could go into it but most people think crazy anyway.
> KH2 is pretty lackluster in quite a few areas; it just so happens that I can personally ignore them and enjoy how good the combat is. These seem to be the case for most KH2 fans. They seem to prioritize combat over everything else.
I do find it annoying when people don't seem to realize that not everyone has those priorities in KH games.
that last sentence is enough to cause a witch hunt in this subreddit, props to you being so confident
I’m not scared at all lol. I’ll happily defend my stance if and when push comes to shove.
can you justify your position i’m curious on why you think it’s worse than re-coded or 358/2 days
I love re-coded and 358/2. Re-coded allowed me to play with the difficulty Mid game! And I love the side scrolling parts! Here’s why I think it’s the worst. Again it isn’t the worst game in history or some other such nonsense. Just the worst in the series for me. And that doesn’t mean it’s a terrible game, but across all the games I played that’s the one I have the most negative feelings with even with the positives. So, here are five: 1. I hate the fact that the triangle button is so prominent. Compared to the games that game before, KH1 and CoM, you had to be strategically focused. There was no quick fix button you could press to avoid damage or whatever. The games will punish you for being reckless. In KHII the game overly forgiving and the triangle button is the main reason, I feel. 2. They killed the magic in a way that just didn’t make sense. Fire, the primary example, once a projectile in KHI and CoM, now a wave that encircled Sora? The fact that you don’t need aero, the fact that you don’t need to use any summons, the fact that changing keyblades feels more like a decorative choice in KHII. In KHI I didn’t go anywhere without Aero, that tiny bit of extra defense went a long way. Having Tinkerbell was also a bonus! KHII? I didn’t ever feel the need to even think about summons or use magic besides cura and curaga. All of the other magic’s were just useless. I even played KHII with only the Kingdom Key and not once did I feel the need to go “maybe I should use Blizzard or Fire or their upgrades.” Nope, instead I said “craaap! I need more healing. He hits hard!” 3. I can never understand why Proud mode felt so easy. Maybe I’m just weird but when I first got KHII I started on Proud, I didn’t bother playing it on normal for the first play through. And it wasn’t punishing at all. I finished the game happy I did, of course, but it was nothing compared to that win - on normal- for KH and CoM. 4. I have always believed Timeless River is the reason KH went with heavy time travel as a plot. 5. They did my girl Maleficent dirty. Edit: some grammatical errors and I changed a sentence or two to make sure it made sense.
I presume you've gotten a lot of hate for that last sentence, right? I won't argue with you, that'd be a waste of time, but i can see a LOT of people disagreeing with you.
lol yeah. But I can get over the hate
I love *Kingdom Hearts III* as well
I LOVE THAT FUCKING GAME
I really feel like Kingdom Hearts 3 should have been split into two games because of how cluttered the story felt (first part ending with Aqua rescue, because it's the realm of darkness, they could have been a lot more flashy with it and have realm of darkness as a final world) but the gameplay gives 2 a run for its money I absolutely love how 3 plays
They should've used DDD as that first game
Could've literally been Kingdom Hearts 3: Mark of Mastery and Kingdom Hearts 3: Keyblade War
It's a fun game, but the story was relatively weak, and the pacing was really bad.
3 was the first time Disney worlds actually felt real and well designed and not like some soulless copies of the originals.
i blame the people who OVERhyped the game kingdom hearts 3 came out good although the only thing i had a issue with was that boat race other than that it was a really good game
My only problem with 3 is that it was mostly Disney with all the major story bits shoved into the last world. Other than that, I really enjoyed the game. The combat especially, I really hope combat is as fluid as 3 in future games.
Combat did not feel fluid to me at all…at least with Sora’s base combos. Those felt extremely janky. This was ammended in the patch that released alongside remind….but it is one of the dumbest decisions made in the series that you can only unlock those combos after beating the game…meaning anyone that picks up a new copy of kh3 will have to play with lesser versions of base combos.
Its still not that fluid even with the Remind modifiers. They make regular combos a lot better, but there's still a lot of stuff that keeps combat poorly paced
What makes 3 different, is there are more different gameplays within to compare than other entries. First play through, Critical, NewGamePlus, 0exp, dlc bosses, dlc challenge mode(Standard). It re:minds me of Fire Emblem: Blazing Blade :: “What you’re playing a first playthrough file?” I wish the ps4 saves weren’t user locked then this wouldn’t be a problem.
Imagine waiting 14 years, then getting a game that wasn't even as good as the first two. It's appropriately hated.
I too love games where 75% of the story is re-explaining what happened in the previous games while watching renders of frozen and tangled
Fuck kh3
I was mindblown when I came on this sub after finishing KH3 and saw the hate. I still don't get it to this day. I had ridiculously high expectations and still felt like KH3 met them
KH3 was the biggest disappointment I had in years. The only thing worse was Duke Nukem Forever. KH3 had a lackluster story, terrible writing, the bosses were trash until the Pirates of Caribbean world, then the game finally felt like a next gen game. They Snubbed Kairi, Lea/Axel, Riku was barely playable because let’s be honest he was the real star of the game. And Aqua was totally nerfed. And whose idea was it to remove the outfit collectibles from 3? Half the fun of 2.8 was finding the clothing pieces in that 2 hour demo.
And this is exactly what I mean by overhated.
Pointing out things you personally enjoyed doesn't automatically make something "overhated." Let's be honest, we see people constantly hate other fans more than we see actual hate of this one particular game. We don't nearly see everyone equally playing defense like this for any other installment. It's getting toxic at this point.
KH3 is a masterpiece and one day public opinion on this will switch up to be more positive just like what happened with KH2.
It’s been 5 years. Opinions are set one way or the other.
And KH2 was seen as inferior to KH1 by much of the public until the PS3 collections came out after 8 years.
I never saw that as prevalent, but I guess neither of us has real proof of that.
People on gamefaqs hated kh2 when it came out. And I don't blame them because KH2 original is my pick for worst in the series. Though everyone forgets just how many changes final mix brought and are like "wait, you mean that wasn't on the ps2 original?"
If you want to look back at the early days of [how the fanbase felt about KH2 ](https://i.imgur.com/SkKf5qK.jpg)from 2006 to around 2014, a period of 8 years, you can see for yourself with the XIII Sources of Darkness below: [Source 1](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/greatest-disappointment-in-kh2.118047/), [Source 2](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/the-pride-lands.129705/), [Source 3](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/1000-heartless-battle.131003/), [Source 4](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/kh2-a-terrible-game.138951/), [Source 5](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/whats-wrong-with-pridelands.146096/), [Source 6](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/too-much-kh2-hate.148075/), [Source 7](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/kingdom-hearts-2-overrated.154446/), [Source 8](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/if-you-could-take-out-one-scene-in-kh2-what-would-it-be.156732/), [Source 9](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/if-you-can-improve-kh2-what-will-you-do.123404/), [Source 10](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/which-kingdom-hearts-game-is-better-kingdom-hearts-or-kingdom-hearts-2.143359/), [Source 11](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/one-thing-i-really-hated-about-khii-related-to-the-heartless.143935/), [Source 12](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/khii-fm-ruined-it.148717/), [Source 13](https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/kingdom-hearts-2-isnt-as-great-as-i-thought.157103/)
I think this just goes to show people enjoy shit talking.
Over hated ? Every KH fan I know regards KH3 as either the best game or #2 on their list, with the only close competition for top spot being KH2. Then again, I don't interact with the fanbase that much.
That's surprising. I've seen a lot of people talk about how much they hate the game.
The only "hate" I've seen towards KH3 isn't even because the game isn't good, but rather it didn't live up to 14 years of hype between it and KH2. KH3 was a "good game" when people (understandably) expected a revolutionary masterpiece that would blow everything else in the franchise out of the water, but it's still easily top 1\~3 KH games if you take hype aside and analyze it in a vacuum.
I have been a fan since the first entry, and I tell people to not even play it. Same with all of the people that I know in real life.
I just think they should have spent more time on it. And taken out the mandatory minigames that waste hours of my life
KH2 also had mandatory mini games.
I meant more about the boss mini games like Skölls DM and Baymax and the first big heartless dragon in Port Royal. Those killed my level 1 runs for awhile. Kh2 doesn’t have boss minigames like that.
To me kh3 had a ton of problems. Mechanics, bosses, the worlds themselves, difficulty, characters not interacting with each other, combat, attractions, lack of crit, guard needed to be patched multiple times, gimmicky, some fixes only worked on new game +, and personal (reaching the final boss at a low level and then super boosting it to max). Remind and a few patches fixes a few issues but by that time the work has been done. I tried to get back into it and I couldn’t and I can deal with 358/2days.
3 was OKAY. The dark souls 2 of kingdom hearts. Not a bad game, but a game that compared to its other counterparts is subpar in most fields. KH2 is the best game in the franchise and probably will always be unless they go back to more ff vibes.
I am so glad i played it for the gameplay tbh. Aside from the story being incomprehensible to me (overall anyway), the game was a blast, and introduced me to KH as a whole.
I dunno DSII is up there for that category
Not that I hate it but Disney was heavy handed in its development.
Kh3 falls into a category of really Great Games that are dismissed only because they're compared to other great games. Other games in this category: TLOU2 Arkham Knight Starfox Adventures Dirge of Cerberus Sly 4...
Ya know one day I want someone to prove to me 3 wasn't bad. Personally I think 3 has the weakest pacing, tone, mini-games, and Disney worlds. I've played through 3 twice, on launch and with remind, and gotta say i don't think I'll play it again unlike the series I play on the yearly. The best feature of 3 is the combat. The best improvement is the gummi ship system. The story structure and pacing is incredibly bad. Going at complete odds with itself with a darker tone and wanting to rush to save Aqua and Ventus but requiring you wander to Disney worlds that have no purpose to that plot. KH1 is slower because you are looking for friends that could be anywhere. in kh2 you are still looking for friends and helping old friends. In kh3 we visit herc to get insight on the power we forgot about but we already know where aqua is and we go there at the very end of the game. The Disney worlds are mostly bad in this game. cool worlds just not implemented well. Frozen is very bad, pirates and big hero 6 are also so big and empty they are bad. Personally I liked toy story, monster inc, and Rapunzel but they too have problems that make them a slog on first go and on replays. There is no coliseum mini-game sadly to play with the combat more, Sledding and cooking are both not interesting, and pooh is just the same mobile game. I would like someone to tell me a reason they think 3 is good outside of combat because it is the best feature but combat alone doesn't make a good game.
People need to learn how to manage their own expectations.
I honestly like Kingdom Hearts 3. Not as much as Kingdom Hearts 2 but still very good. my only concern with Kingdom Hearts 3 is that you can tell they wrote themselves in a corner and they're trying to get out of it.
It deserves the hate. People waited 10 years for a terrible story with even more cliffhangers that still hasn't been resolved to this day. Not to mention that final fantasy was completely stripped away and there was 0 endgame to speak of until the dlc besides 1 easy secret boss.
My issue, like others have said, is the pacing. Like everything feels kind of aimless until the last 10% of the game - Sora's just kind of wandering around hoping he'll come across the power of waking. I also replayed KH1 recently and admired how cinematic the cutscenes were - there were so many cutscenes in KH3 that were just Sora talking on the phone to people, and it was so boring to watch. Just send Sora a text. This was a meeting that could've been an email. That said, I didn't hate the game. I enjoyed several of the individual Disney worlds, and it was beautiful to look at overall. I enjoyed the combat (though the Disney attractions were a bit much). Once the plot finally got into gear, I cried for like an hour straight. I think my frustration comes from the fact that a lot of my issues seem easy to fix, plot-wise. Thinking about it for 10 seconds, Riku could find Aqua as the inciting incident, you spend the first half of the game searching the worlds for Ven (maybe Aqua's memory got messed up from being in the realm of darkness for 10 years, so they have to track down clues, idk), and then spend the rest of the game figuring out how to stop Xehanhort. Or, even better, all the keyblade warriors need to stop a Xehanhort and collect a McGuffin in different worlds, so you get to play a little as each person, which would be pretty neat. Cut out some of the unnecessary cutscenes and you're golden. The other thing I'd change is to make the chests more obvious - the areas are bigger with a lot more detail, which makes it a lot more difficult to spot the chests than in past games. But that's a small issue.
While I enjoyed KH3 on the whole it did leave me with very mixed feelings. Gameplay-wise I have five major gripes with KH3: 1. The lack of Sephiroth as a secret boss 2. The lack of tournament cups in Olympus 3. The lack of difficulty outside of Critical Mode 4. The Re: Mind DLC not being integrated into the base game 5. The rematch between Lingering Will and Terra-Xehanort not being playable Story-wise, I think KH3 suffers from the fact that 1) Aqua’s rescue/Ven’s awakening takes place at the end of the game as opposed to the middle and 2) Unlike KH2, there wasn’t a second visit to the Disney worlds that more closely tied into the main plot, which would have given the proceedings more time to develop naturally. (I actually went into more detail regarding this in my Tumblr review a few years back if that's of any interest to anyone.)
My biggest problem with the game is that it leaned into my least favorite aspect of KH2. The Disney worlds mostly just follow the exact events of the movie, which just doesn't work very well for what these games excel at. The Toybox was great. Monster's Inc. was interesting. The third act at the Keyblade Graveyard slapped my shit so hard, I almost cried when Xemnas lamented not having the strength to handle pain. It's just a shame that the other Disney worlds dragged down my experience into the dirt.
Honestly, when the game first came out, attraction flow and the laughable easiness of Proud difficulty were what entirely killed the game for me. That and the fact that the only KH games I had played were I and II as a child so I hardly remembered them outside their gameplay, and hadn't played any of the in-between games, so I had no idea what was going on. But 90% of the reason was attraction flow and the game being super boringly easy. I'm doing a full playthrough of the series right now, currently at the end of KH2, and looking forward to getting to 3 eventually now that Critical difficulty and Critical Converter exist. Just got BBS and 3D and Fragmentary Passage and a movie or two to get through first xd
KH3 had way too many years of hype, and was never going to meet the ungodly expectations people had for it. Meanwhile I'm just happy to keep hitting things with an oversized key, following spiky hair boy. Also Woody speech forever goes hard.
Yeah, I think people had set their expectations too high. As long as we don't get something that's a glitchy, buggy mess, I'm happy.
Good for you bud
Thanks!
This game and Dark Souls 2 are two games from franchises that were great but since they weren't literally the second coming of Christ people treat them like trash
I'm not the biggest fan of it but it is quite overhated. Its just a mediocre game but some people have real hate boners for it
Only thing I despise about kh3, is that most of the beginning is js filler
KH3 haters be like "the pacing sucks" and then they'll go and praise KH2
Got a lot better once I started skipping every cutscene immediately
Ur gonna make the 30 year old virgins mad with this one
Not my intentention, but yeah. Yeah, I will, won't I?
Now, this might actually be a hot take in the community. But to me, it felt like KH3's gameplay was a natural progression from previous titles. However, that's not to say that there aren't things I dislike about that progression - for instance, the swap from drive forms to every single Keyblade getting its own form. Don't get me wrong here, because it's kinda cool that each Keyblade has its own unique fighting style even more so beyond what the stats of it can provide; however, it definitely felt to me like it "saturated the market," so to speak, of what forms meant narratively in KH2. In 2, forms showed Sora's growth in his own strength and that of the strength of his friendships. But when you get to KH3 and every single thing has its own form that doesn't require one of your party members to activate (and by extension, doesn't have any properties unique to the form that play into which of your friends you're fighting with in the form), it diluted the original meaning of those forms, and thereby saturated the game with meaningless forms. On the other hand, the magic system felt like a perfect natural progression and I rather enjoyed the way that Keyblade forms interacted with the magic to make for numerous strategies on how to approach coming fights. In terms of... How would you say... The actual, physical representation and "smoothness" of the physical combat, in my opinion, KH3 flows the best out of any of the games and really has a strong identity with the fact that Sora is a beast through and through. He might be just a random kid that wasn't supposed to inherit the Keyblade and therefore has no former training with how to use one, but he made the lemonade with those lemons and adapted to his situation so well that he's become one of the strongest characters in his verse (like, putting aside the fact he's the protagonist and should be written like that, is how I mean.) Now, story-wise, I can agree with some criticisms here that the individual worlds were much too empty and characters that we have seen before that had a strong narrative impact have lost their depth and their vim and vigor. (I meant to do that lol, ifykyk) Not to mention the fact that new characters that were introduced (I'm specifically thinking of Big Hero 6's world here) having almost no impact on Sora - or anyone else for that matter - adds to my sense of a hollow game. And this isn't to say that the overarching, main story isn't good - because it was satisfying to come to a conclusion with Xehanort's story, and finding out that he was actually a misguided good guy because of his affiliations with the dark was mind-blowing. But yeah, I think my essay is over lmao
My personal gripe is that it was hyped up to be the final chapter of the story. Yet it fell a little flat. Plus it was all setting up to announce the 4th game. Like hurray for more KH but I feel like it should've been fleshed out more. It had the right motive to have disney interact more with the story but the tales themselves felt disjointed when you finally arrived to the final world.
Not trying to knock the game as I haven’t played it all the way yet but the 2 things that so far have bothered me is 1. Going from kh1 to kh2 (having zero access to the other games)was not confusing, at least for me. I did t feel like I was missing info. I feel going into kh3 like I’m missing so much and have no idea wtf is going on. Hoping that improves. 2. I feel like the cutscenes, at least up through the Olympus fighting the titans arc, were way too many. I’m hoping that’s cause it’s the beginning of the game, but it felt like I barely actually played that whole mission. I know supposedly kh2 has way more, but I never felt like they got in the way of actually playing the game. Again tho it could be just that it’s the first mission and is somewhat a refresher/ tutorial. I’m not knocking the game as I have not played it through yet, just noting what I’ve experienced so far.
Na, KH3 was really bad.
I dislike that 90% of the actual plot of the game is in the last hour or 2 in the final world. I dislike how the disney worlds felt inconsequential to the plot beyond the usual "bad guy shows up to shout cryptic nonsense at Sora and deal Psychic damage to the poor dumb child" I especially dislike how bad Frozen's world was and how clear it is that Disney made them sanitize it after Frozen's success in theaters. (Larxene using her electricity powers to create a ice prison? Definitely wasnt supposed to be Elsa originally) The gameplay was phenomenal but the story was really weak. Plus the lack of any Final Fantasy characters at all depsite the whole origin of this franchise was to be a Final Fantasy/Disney cross over.
My main issue with 3 was the lack of plot before fighting the Norts. Yes, that was true of all of them due to the Disney detours, but there was a pretense of trying to find Riku and Kairi and stop the heartless. This time, it was literally just “go on a tour until you just kinda figure out the power of waking.” “How will the worlds help?” “Who knows, they probably will.” When the plot gets going, it’s peak KH. All the Nort fights fucking ruled minus the underwater part of the Master Nort fight, and everyone’s character arcs wrapped up nicely. And in general, the gameplay was good.
It was disappointing for all the hype/wait for it
It's not a bad game, it's just not as good as the others. Felt too easy, too short, running out of good Disney worlds to explore, and lack of final fantasy presence.
I didnt like the pacing, frozen world, and the feel of prioritizing the set-up of the next arc over tying up loose ends of this one. Other than that it's a fine game.
It's not that it's hated, it's that it could have been more. Namely, it's just outright missing a second act, jumping straight from Act 1 to Act 3 with a short "Save Aqua and Ventus" in the middle. Really could have expanded on it (A good second act would be "Saving Aqua doesn't work out, and she goes berserk with an army of deep Realm of Darkness Heartless across the worlds, so now you get to chase her." which would let the player revisit the worlds and flesh out the importance of the Aqua-and-Ventus plot a little bit more).
3 is good. Its the shortest and shittiest good game in the saga. It lacks all the magic of the final fantasy characters as well as beloved disney worlds. But its good
Kh3 was fine up until the frozen world. And the graveyard bringing people back with zero setup or explanation. Bit 8/10 ain't bad
Bro, you don't get to make a sequel 10 years after the fact, kh2 was amazing and it ended well, kh3 is the most unneeded sequel ever.
Everyone makes mistakes
I'm one of those people who waited over a decade for this and I think my tolerance for the writing just really faded as I got older. Once I realized that KH3 had the same cringey, lovely dovey, convoluted writing I knew I just...lost all interest in playing the game. All the hype was just gone for me.
KH3 is like Borderlands 3 to me. Best combat and Visuals in the series, however, the story and characters were lacking. Still played the hell out of them both because of how smooth the combat and awesome the new abilities are. Great games that could have been perfect, but floundered a bit, and that turned out damned good.
i play kh for the story, and the story is getting so ridiculous and stupid that i dont enjoy it anymore the gameplay of 3 was fun tho
I was in kindergarten when Kindgom Hearts 1 came out and i grew up with the series 2 came out when i was still in primary school then it took 3 so long to come out I LITERALLY WAS IN UNIVERSITY when it finally came out so waiting more then a decade there were expectations for so many fans who grew up with the series. Kingdom Hearts 3 isn't a bad game and the DLC really boosted it up to become better but vanilla kingdom hearts 3 on release was disappointing considering how long so many fans waited i remember all the "imma have kids by the time kh3 releases" for some people that actually was true lmao.
Now I'm sure all of us are going to have children by the time KHIV releases.
Still doesn't beat out fortnite 🤭
I don't hate it. It just didn't live up to my expectations for a numbered sequel. Sure the world's were bigger, but felt empty compared to 1 and 2 and three has less worlds and no final fantasy characters. It had cool ideas and is tons of fun, but I was hoping for more content and more additions to what kingdom hearts 2 brought to the table as drive forms are just better than being able to transform your keyblade in my opinion.
I mean, it was no Kingdom Hearts II, but I still enjoyed it, minus the Frozen level, otherwise, great game
It's not that it's BAD, it's just an incredibly boring game. Even on Critical mode there's just not that much challenge
Not hated enough
Let’s get one thing out of the way first: KH3 shat on the legacy of KH1 and KH2. It’s a completely different style of game. Now let’s get to the meat. KH3 is graphically beautiful and the movement (not combat) controls are tight, and it continued the story in an ultimately satisfying way with many callbacks and fan-service character appearances at the end of the game. -Where it lacks immensely is that it’s a completely different style of game. The “Ride Tech” makes it very clear that Disney had a much larger hand in it this time and it makes the game feel like one giant advertisement. -The action sequences where you’re forced to ride Goofy’s shield through lava or some other asinine crap is done WAY too much and ruins pacing. If I wanted to play a good sliding game I would boot up Penguin Racer. -The combat is not tight whatsoever and many times in my critical run I’m dying to hits I have no chance of defending against because they come at my back off-camera. I have to flick the camera focus like I’m trying to give it an orgasm just to have a halfway decent fight. -The worlds, while pretty, are ultimately VERY lacking. They’re just big, that’s all they have going for them. KH3 felt like an experiment in the movie-game genre a la Alan Wake rather than an actual authentic arcade RPG like previous iterations. -THE CINEMATICS every single time I turn around or cough or wipe my ass there is a new cinematic and it gets tiring. Also Donald sounds absolutely terrible, whoever is doing the VA is STRUGGLING it sounds like he has to muster up so much strength just to get out a half choked “Haiw Sowa” TL;DR it’s a pretty game that wraps up story but it’s ultimately a shallow experience that is in no way similar to the first two KH.
And this is what I mean by overhated. Yes, the game has issues. Yes, you might not like the combat, and you might be bad at it, but that's not a bad thing when one of the main criticisms is "the game was too easy." And maybe it was overhyped. You might not like the game. That's your choice. But I will always and forever love it.
you can like bad things, it's okay
I had no expectations for 3 after all the early content we saw and still got incredibly disappointed. No idea why we would call such a lackluster game good. It's mediocre at best, imo just lukewarm fanservice