definitely agree with all the flaws with KH3, the attractions felt like a cop out, and at certain points I did feel like "ok can we get back to the real strory. I can see why some would want to throw it away, but I finished the game mostly to understand what Xehanort true goal was and to see what happens at the end. Also pretty bummed they took out final fantasy.
KH3 was 100% carried by nostalgia. Wanting to see how the story 'finished' / progressed. There is a reason I played it once, and never touched it again. On the other hand, i'll go back and playthrough KH1 & KH2 on critical because they are damn fun. 3? No fuckin shot
good points on all accounts too! The only reason I didn't completely bash it after playing was the last 2 hour sequence was practically a fever dream fan fiction of a resolution. Felt so out of place it just worked 😅
It was bought for both that conclusion to the story and the desire to see new Disney worlds. I think on the latter it delivered fairly well... although like a lot of worlds in the games it did feel a tad bit empty. The Toy Story world was awesome, but again... so big, so empty.
@@alexdasilva2578The last 2 hours made me hate the game even more. You're right it was like fanfiction, poorly written, BAD fan fiction. "Hey, you're ventus right? You're pretty good" makes me want to barf in my mouth. Instead of all these characters interacting for the whole game and actually doing stuff, we spend hours doing nothing and then magically all the main characters show up at the end and fight all the main villains with completely uninspired dialogue that felt awful almost like square enix was like "SEE they interacted, you happy now?" What a way to end the entire saga we played through for like a decade, what a waste of time.
@@alexdasilva2578this is a while after this comment but I actually did decide to pick up the game again after completing it and found some interesting things. Obviously playing it on any difficulty besides critical would just be annoying, but if you didn't know there is a setting in the abilities tab that allows you to turn off attractions. I've been playing with this on and it actually gives a challenge that really does make you think about how to tackle each enemy (after dying for the 4th time in a continue section and forcing yourself to actually defeat every enemy encounter before continuing)
3 was a mess in a lot of areas, but Square had Nomura all over the place and I think he couldn't properly focus. Now add Disney meddling into that. I hope they learned all of the lessons they needed to for 4, otherwise another of my favorite game series will just go away.
KH III was only ok but certainly had massive amounts of issues that should have been addressed before release. The Disney world stories felt like they happened without your presence meanwhile KH 1/2 you had to be there to drive it forward (or at least that's what I can remember of it all). Meanwhile in KH III it felt like we were in a movie theater and it was going to happen with or without us regardless. So that's why it was bad in this aspect, now the actual storyline (primarily Sora and the gang) just felt like we were finishing off a story arch for Ventus/Terra/Aqua more than our own story instead. While enjoyable characters, it just felt like we already finished the story in KH II for Sora/Riku, everything else was just a strange add-on that looked like it was put on as a side dish rather than the main one. Still left with only questions with what happens next because it felt like there was no closure on if the nobodies/heartless are still lingering around or not (most likely). Where my FF characters at? Gameplay wise, it was only fun during the boss fights, and yea, absolutely agree with that aspect of it being a little bit too dull IMO outside of the rest of the game, with the exclusion of trying to find the implanted mickey mouse collect-a-thon going on, didn't engage with the food system from rat boi either and probably was missing out on stuff but didn't care much either. No sephorith fight which was in every single game felt weird but there's a point where I'd agree, there's a point where it has to stop too so, kind of a double edged sword I can admit. Keyblade forms felt copy pasta'd to an extent with some overlapping each other instead of being their own form and it shows, the Drive forms in KH weren't perfect, valor being the one that was only ok, while the others had a stronger presence or Final Form's over dominance of the game once you get it. OST Wise it was great, but legit probably I've listened to the music more on youtube than I did playing the game after beating it once, and I played KH I and II multiple times over (primarily the choices in the beginning, seeing what goes different back when I didn't have quick and easy access to guides and such). So, I guess to try to put it into a box, problem with KH III is that it was just maybe it being a near average of a game, it's flaws were more apparent than say KH II's were to me. It took far too long to get what we got realistically it felt like a rushed product in the end but they had far more time and experience to get things right with KH III but it felt like the passion may or may not been there, but the product that we got was either too high expectations after KH II. It could and SHOULD (I cannot put enough emphasis on SHOULD either, needs to be bold and 72 size font for me to get this message through) have been far better but fell far shorter than it should have.
I agree. On the keyblade forms part, maybe this is just a personal taste thing, but transforming the keys into spears, guns, staffs, etc. really hurt me in a visual design kind of way. Like, it's called the keyblade, not the staffblade, or gunblade, or whatever. Wisdom form let me shoot but it was from my key, which felt more on-brand. And the fact that you would get multiple claws or hammers when the keyblade pool is already pretty small made them feel samey. But overall I just found most of the new forms to be uninteresting.
I myself have a problem with some of the Disney worlds. For some worlds, it doesn't feel like Sora, Donald, and Goofy have any baring on the plot of that world. Take a look at Pirates of the Carribean; the story largely happens without the trio, as they're busy collecting crabs and just join at the end to fight Davy Jones. Arendelle? You're mostly playing catch-up. The only interactions they have are meeting Elsa (where Larxene repeatedly gets in their way); helping Anna, Kristoff, and Sven rebuild Olaf (where they eventually separate from Sora and the others when Heartless arrive); reaching Elsa's castle (to fight Marshmallow); they follow after Hans but don't interact with him; and when they reach the climax of the plot of Frozen (Anna turning into ice), they're thrust into a fight against the boss Heartless. When the boss is defeated, the plot concludes without any real help from Sora and his friends. I think the only worlds where Sora's existence really mattered were the ones that told its own original story; Big Hero 6, Monster's Inc, and maybe Toy Story? Compare to Kingdom Hearts 2. Port Royal: You have to help Will save Elizabeth and help Jack defeat Barbossa. When you return, you have to put an end to the curse and free Jack from said curse. Mount Olympus: You help Hercules defeat the Hydra when it attacks the Coliseum and help Herc save Meg after she was kidnapped by Hades. Land of Dragons: Help Mulan join Li Shang's army and help her clear out Heartless. When her identity is discovered, Sora, Donald and Goofy are kicked out of the army alongside Mulan. You help her defeat the Mongolian Army with the avalanche and save the emperor from Shan-Yu.
This deserves more views, your editing and humor is top tier ! Great vid, growing up with the KH franchise I was disappointed with 3, with 2 still being the best for me.
@@feedjompo Tbh your humor reminds me a LOT of the better genshin youtubers like MistahFeet and Max0r (except not nearly as many visual jokes per second lol)
No. The less views, the better. This video is just another cut and paste hate video for the sake of hating something. Not funny, insightful or accurate. KH3 is awesome and the best in the Dark Seeker Saga.
Gravity break would be a cool combat modifier where pressing o or square while attack gave you an attack that just pushed you and enemies hit in an area brought to the ground.
Amazing video, this video kinda reminded me why hot take I prefer KH1 combat the most. Idk why but it just felt the most engaging due to the reasons you listed like rewarded for finding enemies counters, more grounded simple and clean combat, and imo best AI in the kh franchise. KH2 was great and fun too but it definitely was the start of where the combat was giving sora so much tools where you can blitz through the enemies with kh3 being the result of what happens if you give him even more tools without much interaction.
Yeah, a lot of people say KH1 is clunky and stiff, but I think they're being overly critical. KH1 combat has its charm for sure. Glad you liked the video.
Disagree on 2 things: 1. KH1's combat is not the best. Casting magic on the ground is too slow, that most people prefer jumping before casting magic to reduce recovery period 2. KH2 did not give Sora too much tools. KH3's combat is NOT the result of KH2's. It's actually worse than KH2. KH2's combat could've been so, so, so much better in KH3. For example, you can make Wisdom and Final Form to always cast the fourth tier magic. Imagine KH2 with grand magic, Aero, different implementations of Water (same as KH1's Aero, for example), 2 shortcut buttons resulting in 8 actions at once (L2 and R2), integration of Shotlocks and Links into the Drive gauge, and many more.
I like 1 and 2 equally for different reasons. With 1, I kind of look at it like an RPG with action qualities. With 2 I kind of look at it as an action game with RPG qualities. 3 just...it is like it is trying to be both equally, while doing poorly at both, at least imo.
KH2 gives you a lot of tools, but you have a lot of flexibility on when to/if you use them in a fight. KH3 has the same amount of tools, but makes it very linear/random so they're more a test of luck than actual skill
The reason I like kh3 is because the story, while not very well paced, in my opinion, it has some pretty epic moments and cool character interactions. The story is one of the weaker parts about this game though. I also like the combat, even if it’s floaty because I find it enjoyable to smash through the enemies, but I do agree that they aren’t very memorable. By far my favorite thing about this game, is the exploration at least for the disney worlds. The worlds in this game are huge with lots of stuff to do and things to collect, and each one is very unique. This is why I like kh3 even though it’s really flawed
Yeah, I can see the appeal of the larger, less room-like worlds for sure, and I liked wandering around some of the safe town areas like in the Tangled world hunting for emblems. As for the story and gameplay, I think I'd compare it to a fireworks show. It's flashy and cool when it wants to be, but lacks substance. But even with my cold, cold heart, even I still felt some feelings in some of the scenes, like Xion's return and the Kairi/Sora combo attacks. Thanks for the reply, I didn't focus on the world design because I thought it was generally fine, but it also didn't cross my mind as a major positive.
That comment about 30 hours of filler is how I felt after playing it. Especially when we get the whole "the power was inside him all along" stuff, I felt like the previous worlds were more or less a waste of time. The most fun I had was the boss rush at the end of the game despite the labyrinth ones playing similarly, but I'm kinda sad that's the case. Now I'm just looking forward to kh4 just to see where the story goes next, plus I've played the others (save for CoM) so it'd feel strange quitting now
That's the sunk cost fallacy at work my friend, it's a hard habit to break. Honestly, if they just kept up plot momentum through each world it wouldn't feel like such a waste. KH1 did this best, with keyblade lore being built up along with the Disney villains actually being the primary bad guys with evil plans. I think that's why the toy story level felt the most important story-wise to me, it focused not on retelling the movie, but focused on "the power of friendship" and interacting with the characters. Somewhat shallow, but it doesn't need to be a ton to make it feel like a world hopping adventure.
@@Joe_334 for sure, despite what was shown in the game and what YX said, it feels like "you can use the PoW to save anyone and travel through time as much as you like, but if you DARE to save Kairi, you must be removed from existance, AT ALL COST!
What ultimately did it for me was the absence of Final Fantasy characters. I was heartbroken, and downright angry. I enjoyed and give kudos to the original characters of Kingdom Hearts - they were wonderful in their own right, but I originally played *and* returned because of the Final Fantasy characters and was absolutely elated at how they were incorporated into the game and storyline. ( The following should might be a shocker given my username) For example, I LOVED the way Cloud and Auron were tied into the Underworld of Kingdom Hearts 2. I had anticipated this game for so long, having played *ALL* installments and keeping up with the convoluted story only to be let down so much - Its an absolute shame to have been bamboozled. Also, I was really surprised to see that Fox News Channel 10 clip, that from Phoenix, AZ! Haha.
agree I'm playing kh to be able to fanboying about ff characters apparence (Squall, Auron, cloud, sephiroth were all great). I just don't understand how you can misunderstand this much your audience
I'm hesitantly hopeful for KH4 entirely because of what they ended up adding to KH3 post release. All the patches and updates that improved the flow of combat, letting you cancel almost any attack into a block or dodge, the DLC adding new combat abilities that essentially replaced the shitty old ones, the pro codes let you disable some of the worst mechanics (mainly attractions), and the new Data Org and additional Secret Boss are both legitimately superior to their counterparts in KH2. The absolute fuckup of their's that was base game KH3 was ultimately the greatest learning experience Osaka Team has _ever_ had, and they immediately learned from their mistakes, and then proceeded to fix them the best they could without the budget to overhual the game completely. They now have KH4 as a fresh canvas to work with, the budget and development time of a full new game to implement all the lessons they clearly learned from KH3. The part that makes me hesitant is the fact the Nomura has dumped an absolute metric ton of story content into the mobile games, meaning it's going to be an absolute nightmate for KH4 to have a story that can actually hook anyone who hasn't spent 5+ hours watching all those cutscenes off TH-cam. Why oh WHY has he made those games THAT important, WHY didn't he save that shit for an actual side game like BBS or DDD, something people would actually want to play??? Instead he gives us a rhythm game spinoff with 5 minutes of important story information for KH4 tacked on. This man has a serious issue with letting spin offs be spin offs, it started with Chain of Memories being turned into and interlude between 1 and 2, Days BBS and DDD were actual side games that don't fall under this camp, but then we have Coded getting the most half assed bit of canonicity in the whole series, when it was only intended to be a cheap KH experience for _pre touch screen mobile phones,_ and after that he feels compelled to fill the gacha game with what is literally the majority of the series plot at this point, when it really should've just been a simple telling of the events of the Keyblade War and nothing more, canon but not essential, background lore, instead we have 1000 year old Ventus and body hopping Luxu, along with the living mystery box that is the Master of Masters.
Nomura is a sinner guiding foolish lambs to the hell that is KH4. Do not fall to his wicked ways. I think he got bonked on the head with a brick and just writes whatever he wants, and usually it's groanworthy. Legitimately the gameplay will probably be better than 3, but I do not trust Nomura to write anything good ever again.
@@feedjompo What happened is that the lead writer who worked on both 1 and 2, Kazushige Nojima, left after 2. It's literal George Lucas syndrome, Nomura's an ideas man, but leave him without anyone to interpret and challenge his ideas, and he'll create an unnecessary volume of garbage.
@@Cri_Jackal Well, that certainly explains why the first major game after 2 was literally the star wars prequels, instead replace generational tragedy with the power of friendos.
@@lpfan4491 To be fair, BBS is definitely better than the Phantom Menace, they actually gave us suprising but sensical reveals and plot twitsts in that game. And back when it was just BBS giving us substantial new plot material, KH3 was shaping up to have some pretty cool pay offs, but then came DDD and KHX.
Yeah, the changes made in the Remind patch brought it much closer to the quality of KHIIFM's combat. The main thing that would improve the game for me would be adding a few Org XIII battles throughout the game. Sure, they aren't actually trying to defeat Sora at this point, but they could still fight you for their own entertainment or out of petty revenge. Apart from Barbosa, every single boss you fight before the Keyblade Graveyard is a big monster. Dream Drop Distance had the same problem. I don't play the mobile games but I don't feel like they were needed to understand KHIII. The numbered games are all played from Sora's perspective, so if he doesn't know what happened in the Keyblade War then the player doesn't need to know either.
Honestly the game was really fun but my biggest issues were how the game handled the combat and frozen world was the most painful part of the entire franchise. Xehanort trying to be claiming he’s been good when he’s really just an awful leader. Honestly the final battle would’ve been much cooler if sora called xehanort out for being a horrible leader since xehanort had never once had anybody call him out on his real motives. The whole “oh he’s good now let’s forgive him.” Was super dumb and rushed.
Yeah, the Xehanort "twist" was a real slap to the face. Why can't we just melt the evil guys like we did to Ansem and Xemnas? I mean Xehanort literally destroys worlds with tons of people on them, it's like a murderer just saying "my B."
@@feedjompo it’s the fact he was doing all this shit with a smile on his face and everybody going “oh you’re such a meanie head xehanort.” And ignore the fact xehanort had some serious flaws on his plan and leadership. Xehanort who killed his true ally who wouldn’t hesitate to help his best friend could reflect on sora who has stuck with his friends to the very end.
They... didn't forgive him though? I didn't hear anything resembling an "It's Ok" from anyone except maybe Eraqus. Also didn't Sora call him out on his bullshit in the same cutscene? Of course his whole random exposition came out of nowhere but Sora and Co. did not forgive him.
I got into the KH Saga last year even tho KH III was one of the games of all time, I'm pretty excited for IV, specifically for the whole Yozora thing going on at the end of ReMind.
As flawed as this game is I’ll always enjoy it. The keyblade transformations are 100% one of my favorite gameplay mechanics ever. Funny thing is, on my first play through I was very mixed on this game, but having replayed it multiple times while carrying over my keyblades from the last save really changed the game for me. It was so fun going through the game on critical with all the keyblade changes from the start. In my opinion it has the kind of variety I think was lacking from KH2 and KH1’s “Mash X to win” strats. Plus, starting a new game + allows you to get the Re:Mind abilities straight away which improves the entire game so much, even though it kinda breaks the pacing of how you change your move set throughout the game but that just never really bothered me. Being a mega fan of the games, yes even birth by sleep (not ddd tho, fuck that game) its easy to call me “nostalgic” or “blind to a series that has long since died”. But my only genuine problem with the kh3 game design is that the original worlds were kinda meh compared to old titles exploration wise, whereas the Disney worlds are mega fun to explore and I find new and interesting details each and every time i replay the game. I am also one of those crazy loons who obsesses over this garbage hill of a story, and I will say it’s mostly cause I like the characters and their relationship with the story more so than the actual story itself. Nomura is a complete idea man, meaning KH is usually filled with pretty awesome ideas, but the execution can fall flat if the right person isn’t helping him with the story. I feel the story up until DDD (God I hate that game) actually pulls together rather nicely and is pretty easily understandable if even kinda goofy. I see the story of kh3 as kind of a course correction of DDD. A lot of the time travel shit was thankfully very simplistic and easy to explain away with replicas and then the other members are just normal nobodies who chose to be that way again after their original demise in chain of memories and kh2. I also actually do like the “floaty” combat. Fighting in the air always feels very cool and visually appealing to me, and you kinda overlooked airstep, where you can lock onto an enemy by holding down R1 and press square and you will be instantly teleported to them. That’s usually how you keep close combat with an enemy that gets launched or likes to teleport away. It completely changes the gameplay for me and makes it very zippy and fast paced, even more so than KH1 and KH2, where if an enemy flew away, it was a major pain in the ass to get over to them, especially in the early game. I remember the flying enemies of kh1 being especially annoying in this aspect. I never had a huge problem with the bosses but I do agree with the sentiment that the organization fights were a bit too bare bones on the base game. An easy way to rectify this would have been for the organization to test Sora’s skills throughout his adventure, leading to more 1v1 fights within the Disney worlds, which would allow them to actually have a full set of moves and an actual boss fight instead of a big boss explosion at the end of the game. Though I will say, as a super fan of the series, teaming up with the characters from the other games was such a fangasm moment for me and it kinda always will be lol. I accept being a Kingdom Hearts trash fan but hey, everyone has different tastes and I just like most things kh3 has done and I’m excited to see how they improve even more in kh4.
Yeah that's all fair. I actually dislike the keyblade forms for the reasons I listed in the video about the floaty combat. It felt to me like I was fighting for control too often. Attacks would lock me into a lengthy animation that I didn't really want to be in and enemies didn't know how to deal with the attacks now that they were generally larger or had different properties. To each his own, though. I have a preference for a quicker, snappier, to-the-point kind of attack in games in general. New game plus is a good addition, but I can't say that having to beat the base game to get it to feel better is a proper solution. A progression towards getting better moves would have been better than getting the Re:Mind stuff all at once IMO. In other words, reworking what abilities you get at each level to sprinkle the good ones in over time. Though I would still argue that KH3 is easy to a fault and rarely motivated me to experiment with the combat since I could usually press triangle to win with whatever command I unlocked. This is unfortunately why I overlooked the airstep, I kept trying to intentionally weaken myself so the enemies could keep up, since just melting them constantly was getting dull. That's definitely a mistake on my part though, I should have considered airstepping like I did with the other movement options, but it just slipped my re:mind. And I think we agree on the story, world design, and organization fights. I feel like the characters and setup were all there, but it just wasn't executed well. Like, what if instead of meeting up with everyone at the very end of the game, you had an organization member or two in each world, and one of the other light keyblade wielders met you at the world to help you investigate? Fighting alongside Axel in Big Hero 6 where he acts like he's too cool to be a real hero, or going through Arendelle with Riku while he gets all edgy about how he was once saved by friendship like Elsa needs to be. Like it's all there, and it pains me that it could have been better with some better writing. As much as I've fallen out of love with the plot, I also fanboy'd a bit over the characters getting their closure, and the team attacks in Re:Mind got me as well. I appreciate you giving your 2 cents on it. I know everyone is different, but Kingdom Hearts is so split in terms of what people think it's hard for me to get a grasp of why one side thinks the way they do. I need people to disagree with me to keep my ego in check, so thanks for watching the video and giving me your thoughts.
@@feedjompo You’re so welcome! I actually appreciated your views in this video as you didn’t come off as holier than thou as a lot of reviewers tend to do. I thought this was good general critique of the game and I always like seeing other people’s perspective on things I like. Yeah kh3 will always be the “untapped potential” game unfortunately. There’s so much stuff they could have done with the characters that they simply didn’t. The fact that all the FF characters had to be pushed aside because “the kh cast was getting too big” only to have most of the screen time go to Sora, Donald and Goofy feels like a smash in the face. As much as I love this series, I will always acknowledge its faults. The game does in a way feel like a chore to play sometimes because you don’t feel like you’re actually doing anything until the anti Aqua segment. I also friggin hate the need to overexplain everything in dialogue rather than character reactions or world design. A big example is when Sora sees the nobodies in kh2 for the first time. He looks at them weird, makes a really confused face, but doesn’t make a big deal out of it and just kills the enemy. In kh3 when the unversed show up, we get about 10 lines of dialogue about how they don’t look like heartless before we even fight them. It’s just not necessary and breaks the pacing a lot. I think this is why so many fans are looking forward to kh4. In a way, it’s a new start with a new arc and it seems like some new characters will be introduced. Hopefully Nomura has learned some things from people’s complaints and will give characters other than Sora and Riku more importance/agency in the story. As for the gameplay, it’s still in basically beta so I’ll hold my opinions for that. Super happy reaction commands are returning though.
I think it has to be played on critical unfortunately in order for you to need to utilise everything. The other modes even proud are way too easy, proud was super challenging in kh1 and bbs. I really had to play it on critical to find the cuisine useful. I used all of the things offered to me in critical and I think all modes should empower the player to use the things in their arsenal
@@gingergamer3270 Agree, critical mode is the way to go to appreciate or at least; get more out of the combat. My initial standard playthrough never really offered a sense of consequence to my lack of engagement with the systems and moves. But replaying on critical recently was much more fulfilling - if not sometimes tedious; but still rewarding to progress. Getting punished for my mistakes facilitates more disciplined combat situational awareness,. It's very satisfying to get in the flow dodgeing/blocking/attacking at the right moments and succesfully predicting,/ 'sensing' the oponements behaviour and movement. I always like the story and exploration aspect of the series, kh3 being no exception but it seems (for better or worse) it took a bit of 'pain' to realise the potential in some of kh3s combat systems. I would highly recommend attempting and pushing through critical if one is trying to get 'more' from the game.
@@gingergamer3270 You should also give Beginner All Pro Codes a try. Unlike Critical you have a fairly large health bar but very few options to recover HP during battle. It's either from destructible objects, the HP walker ability or a chance at HP recovery when you cast spells with the Chef keyblade. You actually have to engage with regular enemies and learn how they work since damage should be avoided at all costs and you can't overwhelm them with attractions, links or keyblade transforms. I was able to beat the whole of KHIII and Remind like this. I'm also doing Critical Level 1 All Pro Codes, but even though I was able to beat Angelic Amber I might have to give up either the Pro Codes or Exp Zero.
My views on KH3 can be summed up thusly: It had many problems in both the gameplay and story, but also held at least some promise for the future, especially in what's been said so far for KH4. Something to remember on the story, for instance, is that Nomura was far from at his best at that time. His storytelling is already one of those "you either really love it or you hate it" types, with little to no middle ground for most people, and I'm one of those who usually falls into the "love it" category. However, between everything that occurred regarding Versus 13 and FF15 (plus, IIRC, he wanted to hold off on KH3, though don't quote me on that), it's not really that surprising that KH3 had more than a few issues story-wise. I'm not currently in a good position to make a more detailed summary, so to finish up: KH3 had many problems, but also some good points, and what's currently available regarding KH4 makes me feel confident that if nothing else, it'll be significantly better than 3, even if it doesn't quite return to the heights of 2 or 1. Also while the movement does seems to retain that locked feel you mentioned, it's also worth remembering that's not uncommon for trailers, especially this early into the hype cycle, and it's entirely plausible that'll be gone come the full release, so personally I'm gonna hold off on judging that either way until later in the cycle.
I've very rarely see a game change drastically from early release trailers... other than in a negative direction that is. There's likely not enough development time left for them to fix the locking seen in the trailer, if they even see the locking as an issue in the first place (which I'm highly doubtful of). Personally I've found it wise to not hold my breath when a trailer comes out. What you see is usually the game at its absolute best, which means it literally can only get worse from there. Storytelling wise, I've read, watched and experienced enough stories that the one told through Kingdom Hearts isn't particularly stand out in my opinion. It's a convoluted mess at worst and a decent Hero's Journey at best. As you've said, both gameplay and story have good points and bad points. But overall KH has been mostly bad points from my experience. Which is a crying shame because some of the most visually and emotionally impactful things for me have come from this series. I just hope Kingdom Hearts can find its feet again and make build a powerful experience once more. But if it can't, well there's more fish in the sea. No need to bludgeon the poor series with ill-directed ire, only thing left after is to move on and leave it to the faithful few fans out there who still can glean some form of enjoyment from the series still. What do you think the future holds for Kingdom Hearts 4? What's kept your interest so far? I'm hoping for an event that subverts conventions in some manner.
To me the story in three seemed more half cocked than in previous installments and the attractions dynamic felt more like advertisements for Disneyland that was tasteless.
wasn't a huge fan of 3 but im excited for 4 because it feels like the series can have a sort of "soft reboot". kh3 was weighed down heavily by so much external stuff that it struggled to hold any identity of its own. I feel 4 won't struggle nearly as much in that way and will be able to take the series in a new and interesting direction
I wish I could be as optimistic as you. I'm more pessimistic about this. I would even go so far as to say that (when it comes to external things), you ain't seein' nothin' yet. One, most of the story materials for KH4 are from mobile games. Most KH fans do not (want to) play mobile games. So, the story will get even more confusing (or silly). Two, Nomura clearly hasn't moved on from the Final Fantasy Versus XIII "betrayal", judging from KH3 and Re:Mind content. Kingdom Hearts 4 will most likely be his Final Fantasy Versus XIII, making the game lose even more of its identity.
One thing I was absolutely salty about KH3 comabt was its Guard. I don't know if I'm the only one feeling it, but I swear sometimes enemies, especially ones with big swinging motions, just completely went over the guard hitbox or whatever, and instead managed to reach Sora from behind. I can't say if that's even a real thing that was happening, but in my experience, KH3 Guard is somehow less reliable than previous titles'. I would legit trade the ability to use it mid-air for that stable feel it gave me when used in the past games. idk.
KH2 was the last good kingdom hearts gameplay wise. BBS was limited due to its hardware I assume so combat felt relatively sophisticated on the ground while really, *really* lacking in aircombat mobility DDD...I don't like talking about it. playing as Riku was fun, the timer between characters sucked major donkey balls. also that was the introduction of flow motion and I personally hate it. I can get to locations was quicker and way more comfortable in Kingdom Hearts 2 with the upgraded glide ability. air mobility was alright I guess, I really don't remember much about the game aside from the fact that I did not like it. KH3...ooh boy KH3...yes, you feel floaty. that's it. you can stay in the air indefinitely. there's no feeling of weight behind your hits like there was with KH2's combo finishers. yes KH3 has some nice options but it's just not living up to it's previous iteration. also drive forms are gone. yeah people like the new keyblade forms. I didn't. I didn't like half their designs as per usual, so half these special forms I haven't even used. I used oathkeeper, oblivion and ultima once I got it. so I have 3 less forms to choose from each fight if we consider KH2FM had Valor Form, Wisdom Form, Master Form, Final Form, Antiform and the classic form of which I forgot the name. on top of that there's not as much mobility in KH3. yes you can use flowmotion almost anywhere but it's only possible in certain spots. I could use the quadrouple jump from master form *anywhere* Taking out the drive forms was a *massive* L for me. Combat doesn't have a weighty feel. Magic is good and looks way better than in previous games. Which isn't hard if the previous main line entry was 14 years ago. But the magic was okay, gotta give 'em that. Story was downright cringy for me and I don't know why. Maybe I've outgrown Kingdom Hearts at this point in my life. But all the Dialogue especially with non disney characters like Kairi, Axel, Sora, Riku was sending shivers down my spine. Not the good kind either. And Xemnas and Co. were just so extra edgy as well as Yozora...I dunno man, it's far from what I hoped for and Characters like Ansem are just thrown away. The guy I've been fighting with for 2 decades now. Has like 3 final lines where he actually talks to us, reveals he isn't that much of a bad guy, refuses to elaborate and dies. This game has been a through and through 3/10 for me despite everything it tried to do and to add...nah man. Not even an Arena or something. Olympus while having a larger world than KH2 has 0 Arenas. Nothing to test your medal. "You get a run of the mill Invictus from KH1 with a bit more fashion and a second sword. That's it. No sephiroth either, we don't want final fantasy characters after I didn't get to write my noctis the way I wanted him to be! I'll compensate by making the entire bad cast overly edgy in kingdom hearts! yeah that's a good plan!" That plus I am expected to have played random ahh ahh mobile titles from japan to understand the story? Naah Nomura. You fckd up. I think I'm done with the franchise. Which is sad, because as a kid, I swore to myself I'd always stay updated when it comes to the franchise, no matter what happens. Oh well.
Hey great video! I honestly appreciate how much the focus was on everything other than just the story because oof, every point you made was completely relevant but generally ignored by other people to focus on the story itself. And for me personally, the only thing that kept me going through the game when I first played it was nostalgia. I loved seeing all the characters I literally grew up seeing have what I expected to be one last adventure to resolve everything. Like I genuinely got emotional seeing the opening song because I kept thinking "oh my god this is happening, after like 17 years of buildup". It was only a few days after finishing it when I really thought about the game, and realized "wait that kinda sucked" lol. I'm honestly hopeful for 4, but extremely wary about it.
The thing was you clearly missed i terviews. Nomura sayed since 2007 kh 3 would Not be the end of Soras Story. Its like a Anime series witj multiple story arcs. He also Plans to devolep Soras character. He curently has insecuretys. Kh 4 will add a new writer to help make character Motivation clearer
Its actually amazing having you detail all these issues. You are much more technical and in depth than me and I find myself nodding on pretty much every point you make. All I know is I liked 1 and I loved 2, but I ALSO couldn't get through 3. I know I'm going to have to get though it for 4, but I still kind of dread it. Edit: Wrote my comment RIGHT before your slideshow outro. I had to edit it just so I can lol.
One of the TH-camrs I like, and who is far better than me, did the same thing to me once when it came to Dark Souls II. Matthewmatosis gave me words to put to my feelings and I respected him a lot for that. I'm glad I could give some of the same feeling back to someone else.
Usually the problem is the love for KH2 and people being like "EW THIS ISN'T THE GAME FROM 2005!" when it's extremely unfair to compare them due to being wildly different climates of the gaming sphere.
@@blastortoise It's more so that's it's wildly different teams. The team currently designing the games used to be the "B Team". "A Team" designed the first 2 Kingdom Hearts as well as the version of Chain of Memories on the GBA. B Team was first tasked with porting COM to other platforms in 3D, rebranding it as RE:COM. However, due to certain Square Enix Events, A Team was re-assigned to other projects and B Team was tasked with taking over the series. Quite a tall order for a team that was just supposed to port games and not create them. B Team's first own game was Birth By Sleep where the issues of floaty-ness, lacking gameplay and other gameplay issues started. Over time this team has honed their game design skills and iterated on their own take of the Kingdom Hearts combat system. Kingdom Hearts 3 is the culmination of what they have learned put into practice. They've come so very far from where they started in BBS, but the issues spring from the fundamentals of their game design. Their combat isn't snappy, heavy and lacks the momentum that the first two games had. It is objectively bad and these are legitimate issues for an action game. But it's the design feel this team likes and is running with. I'm glad to see the improvements, but they'd have to un-learn everything from that past decade and start all over to make the games have tighter gameplay design. It's just not something you can just learn overnight, or something where you make a few tweaks to an existing system to fix. And that's because it has to start in the mind of the designer, not in the programming or animations. But I think it's fair to critique KH3 and it's gameplay. In fact, having been over 15 years the game should play better, not worse than its predecessors. The "new" team has had more than enough time to learn from their mistakes and make the gameplay snappy, weighty and critical. But instead they've emphasized style over substance. It's more important to them for the game to be flashy than functional as a game. I'm sorry, but people play games to PLAY them, not to WATCH them. We watch movies, we play games. And if the gameplay isn't engaging and fun, then it's not worth our time. What frustrates people is they WANT Kingdom Hearts to be good. I WANT Kingdom Hearts to be good. But the designers also have to want it, or it's just not going to happen. So we complain in hopes that it motivates the designers to put a little more elbow grease into giving the mechanics more polish. At this point, what else can you do? It's not like the community has the permission to design their own Kingdom Hearts game. If we could, I'm sure collectively we'd come up with something infinitely better, but we can't, so all we can do is sit here and express our disappointment with this colossal pile of dog shit square enix so inelegantly placed on our doorstep.
@@asthmeresivolisk3129 Yet my point still stands, and no it hasn't been 15 years in the making, it's been 7. If you want to be stupid and not count the other games (which is only stupid because you NEED to count those games to get the plot of 3) then yes it's around 14-15 years. "It'S oBjEcTiVeLy BaD" no it's not, it felt about the same as KH2 but slightly slower, which isn't a bad thing it just takes getting used to, and clearly people suck the dick of 2 far too much considering its one of the worst KH games just because the gameplay is enjoyable? Ignore story, ignore world design, ignore side mechanics, ignore graphics, gameplay only, which makes your entire rant here: "I'm sorry, but people play games to PLAY them, not to WATCH them. We watch movies, we play games. And if the gameplay isn't engaging and fun, then it's not worth our time. What frustrates people is they WANT Kingdom Hearts to be good. I WANT Kingdom Hearts to be good. But the designers also have to want it, or it's just not going to happen. So we complain in hopes that it motivates the designers to put a little more elbow grease into giving the mechanics more polish. At this point, what else can you do?" Stupid statement, first it shows a lack of knowledge or care for game design and its difficulty, especially 3D games that are freeroam, and secondly this is a JRPG, not Call of duty where a statement like that would apply, the reason these games thrive is EXACTLY because of the mix of watching and playing, which KH3 gives in a good balance. Would Chrono trigger be as good as it is if it had less story to watch? No, and that applies to every single popular JRPG/RPG/SRPG, so it's really stupid to say that.
Boy KH3 for me turned out to be the last straw that broke my faith in SE. Refuse to buy their games blindly now and instead wait on reviews and watch let's plays to decide. I know FF 16 didn't have Nomura but it was such a huge disappointment. SE just can't seem to tell an engaging story anymore in their major games.
I actually like that Sora has the ability to hang in the air during combos, and a little bit after. It sets him apart from other action rpg protagonists. There is some dead air after an air combo finishes, but you can mitigate that by shotlock-flow onto another enemy and starting another combo. If the game incentivized being in the air more, like if you got some kind of xp multiplier for each enemy defeated without touching the ground, it could be a strength instead of a weakness.
As someone with zero nostalgia (expect for vague memories of birth by sleep) I really liked kingdom hearts 3, the floaty gameplay felt fun to me and even though the story of kingdom hearts is a little confusing I truly love the game series. I understand how someone could dislike the game, but here's my perspective. Gravity: Being in the air all the time didn't bother me because of flow motion, cool air combos, shotlocks and magic. Attractions: Some were fun at first and I loved that sora was having so much fun whilst slaughtering hordes of heartless, but this was the point I agreed with you the most on. Attractions felt out of place and kind of over powered even though everything was powerful. The Original Worlds: Revisiting twilight town was perfectly fine considering KH3 is the end of the Xehanort saga and it was a location very important to the overall story. They could of changed some stuff for gameplay reasons, but it wouldn't have made much sense story wise. I really liked the keyblade graveyard because I'm a huge birth by sleep fan. The labyrinth area of the graveyard felt really fun and I loved the characters they picked to fight each other. Scala ad Caelum was really fun to explore and I wish it was bigger. It was an amazing final boss arena especially to show Xehanort's power. I'm sure it makes more sense as a world once you learn the story of dark road (Idk though, I never played it and I have very little understanding of dark road's story.) The Enemies: KH3 enemies were less memorable because you can just nuke them with magic pretty easily, but the unique gimmicks of each heartless really shine when playing on the critical difficulty. Critical mode makes the gameplay so much better and fixes most of the issues I had with sora being way too powerful. And finally the future: I loved playing through the full series (minus the mobile games) and I'm extremely excited for KH4. Sora being in the real world doesn't feel "stupid and tacky" to me, and I hope they do it right because the non-disney part of the story has always been my favorite. Even if KH4 is awful Kingdom Hearts will always hold a place in my heart. Side note: A very well made video, and I hope to see more content from you in the future.
I like some aspects of KH3. I played it with mods that fixed some gameplay issues. And that helped my enjoyment. However... - I missed reaction commands. - I wanted a few more words to explore (at least 2). - Some of the worlds could have been designed better (mostly Frozen). - The story could have been paced better. - The climax was cool, yet felt unearned. If I ever get a chance. I want to create a series of video essays detailing what I would change as a game designer.
"Did we rush through 3 so that Nomura could get a second chance at Versus?" ....Look, I know I'm not the biggest fan of KHIII -- I really did not like it. And honestly...that question is a big part of why. It really did feel like he just...didn't care about it anymore. And seeing as to how Sora clearly looks like Noctis as well now...
The parts where you lowkey appreciating Sora’s Feet with memes in the KH4 Trailers had me rolling! I won’t judge personally want Naminè’s Feet, heck she always has them out and they’re just asking to be worshipped, I’m surprised you didn’t show them during that ending slideshow of this video.
The end slideshow was made with the in-game gummiphone, so editing in feet that weren't available in game would be dishonest, and I would never lie. Also I'm not really a foot guy, I just thought it was funny. But I won't judge you either.
Broooo. I forced myself through the final half of the game and getting pissed at the spacey dialogue (it felt like 2 second spaces all the time) and the super floaty combat. And why did sora become a complete child? Crying and whimpering like he didn't face the death of the universe twice. I loved these characters and this felt like bad fan fiction. Threw away my copy when I was done, never bought the dlc, threw out the poster I got for preordering the game. But you sir earned a subscriber today. Excellent video
Great video man! Another problem I had with the game were the summons. In kh1 and 2 the summons were ACTUALLY there fighting with you and had their own unique move sets. In kh3 they made the summons into elementals and it made me feel like I wasnt actually fighting with them
Summons were almost the same thing as attractions in 3, unfortunately. I do wish 2 actually explained the depth of the summons though, like how if you don't use Stitch's reaction command he licks your health bar and MP bar to fill it back up.
@@feedjompo No wonder this video felt so off right from the get go in the first section about physics. For all of the confidence and zeal with which you put forward your points, there's a distinct lack of basic factual accuracy (and a total lack of consideration for actual differing viewpoints; your capacity for strawmanning the opposing side of the argument reminds me of Geoff Thew and bl00dybizkitz) where it matters. Stitch doesn't restore your HP bar when he licks you with his tongue, that only restores your MP bar. Stich automatically restores your HP over time tick by tick at a very slow rate for a very very small amount of HP per tick, and he also provides HP orbs for the player when they use either one of the attacks in his Limit Command or when he uses his ukulele of his own accord while out on the field when the player is at low enough HP (assuming you're not in the Colosseum). If you can't even get something like this right in a comment format where you can easily correct any mistakes you make, then why should I trust what you have to say in the video? I'll finish the video anyway, but you're not off to a great start, even in just the video's first major section by itself.
@@boyishdude1234 Gonna be real, I thought he only licked the MP gauge, but double checked myself against the wiki: "If the HP or MP bar is low, Stitch fully restores it by licking the gauge." Here's what I looked at: www.khwiki.com/Stitch#Kingdom_Hearts_II_2 It's a bummer because I knew how it was, but then sourced wrong info. Shoulda learned from the Dark Souls wiki that sometimes people post wrong stuff, and should have referenced a video instead, but good catch on your end.
@@feedjompo Yeah... I've been with low HP using Stitch before and that's never happened to me once. Wikis are a double-edged sword. When they're accurate they can be an extremely convenient tool, but when they're not they typically leave you with more questions than answers. Have you read the Fextra wiki page for Greirat's questline in Dark Souls 3? It's perfectly not confusing, I assure you.
@@boyishdude1234 Lol, I'm pretty sure I used that exact page on Greirat, got confused, and had him die in one of my playthroughs. By the way, in your other comment you mentioned things like me strawmanning or just being wrong in the video, and I legitimately wouldn't mind you explaining. It was my first attempt at making a review, so if I did actually overlook things or misrepresent people, then I can try to patch it up for next time. So far most comments that are disagreeing with me are about whether the game was good or not, but if it comes down to my scripting and structure that's something I would really like to hear about. I'm sort of starved for that type of feedback. Other feedback, like if I got an actual fact wrong, would also be good to hear (like if my frame counts were inaccurate, or if I said you can get a skill in 1 or 2 at the wrong spot, or something along those lines). I definitely went full smug in the first chunk, which I think is funny but probably not the best way to start when trying to be taken seriously. For future reviews I'm planning on reeling that back, shooting for comedy but not to the extent that it would alienate people who disagree immediately. But I was pretty confident in the later sections (at least in regards to it representing my perspective) being well articulated and thought out. And don't worry, my smug aura isn't carried into the comments, so I'm not trying to bait you so I can start a big argument or something.
Tbh the pardon for 3 comes from there clearly being a really big issue on Nomura's part for figuring out how to finish the story threads for so many characters. Smaller scopes with a less bloated cast he is typically better with, which is what gives hope for 4. Sora and main co + Foretellers is by itself a smaller scope than KH2 cast, which should give a lot more room to breathe with each character that he does generally better with.
Thank you for this. The gravity in KH3 wasn’t an issue for me until the ReMind DLC dropped with the Data Fights. I hated fighting those fights initially because I noticed that whenever I finished a combo, the bosses falls like bricks while Sora is still in the air. And some of the fights, being in the air is basically a death sentence because they have speed of a bullet train while Sora recovery in the air is the slower than when he’s on the ground (looking at you Saix). If Sora had a Keyblade move that is basically Helm Breaker from DMC to get to the ground faster, I would’ve enjoyed my time more.
I hundred percented KH3 and thought it wasn’t as bad as everyone said but there were a lot of cutscenes and flaws that made me wish it was a little better and more fleshed out story.
Honestly I beat 3 and didn’t feel much of anything upon beating it. After some time and coming back for remind I realized how much this game either made me feel indifferent or hate my time playing due to quite a few aspects you mentioned including MANY of the story stuff. The only reason I’m hopeful that 4 can be better is that the Xehanort arc is over apparently and we got potentially a new slate to build upon. With the teaser from remind with Yazora it made me feel like things could be potentially a bit more serious or something. The teaser trailer for 4 feeling a bit more serious and sora being in a real life place intrigues me but idk how I fully feel yet since I’d need to see how he interacts with the world more I guess. Finally I’d say since they got over the many problems 3 development had they’ll be better off this time around and potentially have less development hell causing issues. I wouldn’t say that last part is the only reason for why 3 has many design issues that were a problem but definitely a large part I think.
It's hard for me to look at the disrespect 3 got development and story-wise and be hopeful for 4 at the same time. If it's great, that's great, but to some extent the way 3 was waved away for a totally new story puts a bad taste in my mouth.
I always really struggled with liking KH3. I think for many of us, it was a game that was SUPPOSE to be a return to everything that was fun about the numbered titled games like KH1 & KH2. Instead, it carried the weight of BBS & DDD just with prettier graphics and a "let's wrap this up" type of conclusion thrown together. I always knew KH2 was my favorite game of all time, but I always HOPED that when KH3 came out, it would overtake that spot. I should've known that after the floatier combat of the handheld titles, as well as the "stupidity" trait that was added to sora in DDD, it would just be a continuation of that. The team made an attempt at rectifying this "floaty gameplay" by adding some additional abilities that existed in previous titles, but the entirety of KH3 was designed with floating in mind. A large majority of enemies are flying and get knocked back so far. Sora's movement has to be linear in order to keep up with them. I always hate saying "Just make it more like KH2", but in all honesty, it's true. KH2, in terms of combat, is still unmatched in the entire series. I genuinely think if they made the enemy juggle closer to sora, with the faster hitting combos and more gravity-induced finishers and added more on top, it would've been far less hated on. I have plenty more to say about KH3, from the phoned in line delivery, to the fact that the frozen Disney world was just the movie with Sora & the gang awkwardly in the background. Nevertheless, I'll continue to get my hopes up for KH4, as much like a toxic relationship, I'll keep hoping it'll somehow give me what I'm looking for.
I played it thinking I'd finally get some closure, but it still left a bitter taste in my mouth and left me with more questions than it answered. I'll prolly play other future parts just so I could try and find answers
@Feed Jompo Or actually play Kingdom Hearts 3 WITHOUT the nostalgia blindness like you and several others have unfortunately expressed with low tier videos like this. KH3 is peak Kingdom Hearts, both game play wise and plot wise. Provided you actually pay even the slightest bit of attention to the quality of the combat, plot, characters and other parts of the structure.
The funny thing about Nomura is that if you really dive into it. Kingdom Hearts wasn't even his baby. There were OG FF guys that literally had major input into making KH1 so good. Obviously the moment those guys left Square, well. Everything went downhill.
The Disney worlds in this game weren’t really filler per se. They were just used differently in this game than in the past ones. While we spend the game going through them looking for the power of waking, what Sora is actually seeing is various examples of love in all its forms, and the sacrifices those that love are willing to make. The Disney worlds were meant to be a more thematic connection to the main story than a plot centric one. After Sora gets done traveling to these worlds, his feelings for Kairi progress from childhood crush to genuine romantic love. The connecting theme of love and sacrifice in the Disney worlds were meant to foreshadow Sora ultimately caring so much for Kairi in particular that he is willing to sacrifice his very existence to bring her back to life. I think the reason so many people don’t catch this is because this theme doesn’t get the chance to really stand on its own. We don’t get enough scenes with Sora and Kairi to establish that their relationship has really changed. Yes, they finally ate the paupu, but that’s about it. Also, the scene where Sora finally comes to this realization (the scene right after he saves everyone and he and Kairi turn back time, where Sora has the flashbacks to the Disney worlds) kind of got lost in the chaos of everything else that got squeezed into the last 3 hours of the game. I’m not saying that KH3 was perfect by any means, just that the argument that the Disney worlds were filler and nothing more isn’t necessarily true, you just had to look at them from another angle.
You're the second person to bring up that I said the Disney worlds were filler, but I don't think I actually said that. Correct me if I'm wrong though, I'll clarify here. Maybe I didn't phrase it well enough, though I did check the script. I brought up filler 2 times in reference to 1) the combat and 2) the box. For combat, the idea was that the enemies themselves were the filler. And while the worlds had their cutscenes, the majority of playtime would be fighting enemies. I referred to them as filler in the sense that they were there to extend the game's play time and nothing more, since they were otherwise completely unengaging. Obviously an action game needs combat, but due to its simplicity, it became almost irrelevant. For the box, the point of the Caribbean level was to show the romantic love between Elizabeth and Will. However, Luxord was just there to find the box, yells about the box a lot, and nothing comes of it. This makes it feel like filler, in the same way that filler in an anime is a topic that is brought up and never referenced again. Maleficent and Pete looking for it also has no pay off. I'm sure it'll matter later, but vague teasing for something that gets no extra information to the player feels rough, since the box could've been left out of the game entirely (except that last cutscene) and nothing would have changed. I did pick up on the themes of love, but I didn't want to talk about story in this really. However, if we're really talking about it, with how most of the worlds are paced, it can certainly feel like filler. I don't think the themes justify the playtime of these places, but I would be a liar if I said the themes weren't there. Anyway, just wanted to clarify. Let me know if I did say something more directly about the worlds being filler and I'm just forgetting that I did.
@@feedjompo I’m sorry, I think I was the one that was unclear. My comment was less about your video and more defending the view point that the Disney worlds in 3 matter. The idea of them being “filler” that don’t matter in the grand narrative is a common complaint you see flung out by those looking for a simple and clean (see what I did there) thing to pick on. But I can’t say in fairness that it’s the fault of the players if they feel that way because, like I said in the original post, the failure to properly convey that is in the game, not the player base.
@@drm726 Ah, gotcha. It was more of a general response to criticism, not necessarily directed at me. In that case, yeah I see where you're coming from. It did take my second playthrough to notice what they were going for, and Kairi needed some more time, even if it was just another cutscene. Sora and Kairi's relationship grew, but it's almost like it happened off screen. Spending more time with all the characters would have definitely made the time feel more worth it, even if the interactions were superficial. Glad we agree here. People hand wave the story a lot in these games, and while I think the quality fluctuates, I think it's too much to actually say it's actually nothing. Though I might say that as hyperbole sometimes.
One thing I find strange is that I remember only one entirely unique situation command circumstance in KH3. For Goofy's, where you launch up and throw him down, I'd you do it while targeting the tall sand pillar heartless, it swallows Goofy and gets killed instantly. I was always disappointed that there weren't more interactions like this.
i dont think sora's movement has to be realistic; just not floaty/unresponsive so you can keep playing faster. like if he fell faster and that improved gameplay that'd be ok. or if constantly being on the air allowed him to combo better that'd be good too.
Kh2 is my favorite, I still don't remember why I like it so much, I just did. Kh1 for me at least was great, it gives me nostalgia from playing the first game when I was younger, but sometimes there were the little things, platforming could be a pain, you move slowly and I had to keep restarting the race against Riku because I fell or got caught on something. Playing kh1 again on final mix is way too easy, the story is great, the music just hits right. In kh2 the music video cinematic scene is amazing. The gummi ships were fun in kh2 compared to being just annoying in kh1. There might be more but I'm still replaying the games. I remember re chain of memories that the card attack system was not my favorite thing, perhaps replaying it will grow on me, the boss fights were done well and interesting. I like using reaction commands in kh2. You had to think on your feet because there were so many ways to fight. The game punishes you for just spamming and hitting without a plan. In a few words kh2 was simple, clean, a great challange and just fun.
Exactly right. The game just feels half baked. Soras moveset doesn’t really have a lot of synergy with the enemies and isn’t fun to experiment with. The lack of original worlds just seems like we’re purposely leaving out a part of KH. The story is just slapped together. The world design is uninspired. I kinda just think Nomura wanted to get this over with so he could do KH vs 13.
i'll never understand why they halved the gravity after KH2. 2 and 1 really are the only games that feel good in that way. if they were so dead set on having it be floaty then it needed a lot more combo modifiers to give you better control over your height, and they could've even given you a fast fall movement option like fighting games often do. i haven't yet experimented with gravity mods for pc but i look forward to trying that and seeing how it feels. in general i felt a lack of satisfying animations and movement in this game, like the way glide has no momentum to it, how painfully slow some of the early modifiers are and how many recovery frames they have, how pace breaking and awful some of the keyblade transformation finishes are like the Shield or Flag ones etc. hope 4 will be a step up from it, Re:Mind was a good sign atleast
I have hope for KH4 because Re:Mind really showed that it clicked for the team how to make the gameplay of KH3 challenging and interesting along with options to cut down on mid-combat cutscenes and flat out removing attractions (which means they took the feedback about them being annoying and too long to heart). Assuming 4 uses the same engine and gameplay I’m hoping they use that same understanding when developing the entire game to make something more difficult and interesting to play that uses all the mechanics like Re:Mind did.
If they focus on cleaning up the normal combat and reduce how much they use in-game weapon cutscenes I could see it being a somewhat fun romp. Still probably won't be for me though.
I’m not overly hopeful for 4 story wise, but gameplay wise I’m sure it could match 2. Really rubbed me wrong that Nomura rushed past so many character interactions in 3. He was surprised people were more excited about dark aqua than the new worlds. He seems kinda detached from how things were back before dream drop. The series felt more alive when the cast expanded, now it’s back to Sora solves all issues. I hope they don’t abandon the rest of the cast in 4. I’d actually like to play as Roxas and others looking for Sora
I'm in the same boat as Nomura with this one tbh. Why do people like these characters? They're not well written at all, they're bland and rather unconvincing for the most part. But more over I think, as a creator, there are 2 main reasons he doesn't view these characters the same way the fans would. 1. Nomura is an innovator, and idea man and a visionary. he LOVES coming up with badass ideas and interesting new concepts. But he's not so great at sticking to them and fully developing those ideas to their fullest potential. Once He's gotten a fair ways in to a new idea, he comes up with another one and becomes disinterested in the last idea and just drops it. The characters in Kingdom Hearts are like individual ideas he's had, but once the game they came from is done with, he's mentally done with them and has no interest in going back and fleshing them out anymore. this ties into... 2. Nomura is probably tired of working on Kingdom Hearts. Again, he likes new ideas, and being forced to come back to the same franchise over and over again is probably wearing out his creativity. He's got all these cool ideas he wants to try out (whether they're good or not) and the only place he can shoehorn them into is Kingdom Hearts. Which is probably why the plot is so convoluted and poorly assembled at this point. But unless it's a main character he has a strong feel for who has actual development plans in place, he's probably not interested in seeing the other characters through. He's got burn out on them, so from his point of view the other side characters are just tiresome to look at, so he figures it's the same for the fans. Just dead weight he has to carry from game to game to begrudgingly appease the fanbase. These are the reasons I ultimately think Nomura feels this way. I can't exactly speak for the man, but following the patterns of what he's said in the past and his own actions and direction, this much can be roughly gleaned. Personally the only side character I like is Luxord, but it's mostly because they haven't fleshed him out with nonsense and his past is a mystery. As soon as they spotlight him, I'm 100% sure they'll ruin him for me. But alas, what's a lad to do?
Damn. I'm super proud of the editing in my own Kh vid, but this proves the competition is tight. Great watch, your passion is super evident in the writing and line delivery.
Wow this is a fantastic video and it highlights a lot of my grievances with KH3 fairly well. I wouldn't say I hate KH3, but I think it might be one of the single most disappointing games I have ever played. I am, or perhaps were might be a better descriptor as of now, a huge fan of the series. I love nearly every game and found myself engrossed in the bizarre story and character drama. These sorts of stories with off the wall twists and out right nonsensical universal mechanics are definitely not for everyone, but for me it scratched an itch and I eagerly looked forward to how I foolishly assumed Kingdom Hearts 3 would tie it all together in a neat little bow. I was an idiot and a clown for thinking so, obviously, but to someone chest deep in a pool made of Hope for a proper end to this long and epic series, I simply could not see such a thing. To make it clear, my biggest point of despair for KH3 was chiefly on the story, or how I should say that there barely was any. In previous entries each world served a purpose in the narrative to steadily feed you little nuggets of plot/story information as you go along. Sure the actual happenings in that world might not amount to much but you still generally feel like you gained something important from the venture, such as hints of what evil plot the villains are up to or bits of character growth for the cast, which ultimately helps feed into the big climactic reveals and story moments near the end. KH3 had next to none of that. We knew since before the game came out that Xehanort was going to mess around with Kingdom Hearts (the in game thing not the series) and there would be some big fancy showdown at the Keyblade Graveyard. Not only that we also knew there was a chance of many fan favorite characters returning, so the great big final showdown felt hollow and more like just going through the motions. What new story elements we did get that may have been interesting were perhaps far worse than this, as they were all nothing more than droplets of a much broader story that was not even in the mainline KH games, but in fact shoved away in a pay to win mobile game. This was the straw that broke the camels back for me. Want to find out the secret past of the Kingdom Hearts world? Well you don't find out in the much hyped "final" entry of the series, but in a mobile game! Want to find out the backstory of Xehanort and learn why he was the big bad for the whole series? Play a mobile game :D! This meant that if you were someone like myself that loved KH not for its gameplay but the story then you payed 60 bucks (or more) for a glorified advertisement for an entirely different game. And the worst part of it all is that now the plot has been so stretched out and convoluted that it barely feels like the main series entries even mean anything from a story perspective. Who gives a crud what Sora is up to now if anything remotely interesting in KH doesn't even happen a thousand miles away from him? I'm done. Much like you mentioned in your video, I too will be treating anything with the name Nomura attached to it as if it had "WARNING - PLAGUE - DO NOT OPEN" written on it. Bah!
Your mistake was ignoring nomura saying kh 3 isnt the end of the Story uustcthe xehanort Saga. I think i see alot of hate forbthe game come from this misconception. People who knew what the game Was aculy likèd it as ther went in only expecting the end of xehanort as the Main villain
@@indedgames4359 I loved the story. And as a fan, I will watch endless videos to get caught up on the phone games. I get the pain of a good chunk of lore being hidden behind a phone game. But honestly Nomura is a really good writer. People who say Disney worlds have no meaning can't read subtext worth a damn, and kh3 was designed to be purposely misleading and played multiple times to understand the story. Remind adds so much more, and people still don't get it. I'm waiting for them to all get ten times as mad when all the subtext becomes text because it's not going to be what they expect and will come out of nowhere in their minds, disrupting the story and reconning and all the other excuses people have had to hate on the story.
The summary for me is, I expected some quantity of new stuff from a numbered game, but got less new stuff from it than the other less ambitious games of the series. Story and gameplay-wise in particular. This really hit me one specific time when Larxene appeared in Frozen world just to annoy me by creating an ice labyrinth. I was really underwhelmed seeing all these organization members again with no intrigue aside from being Xehanort's underlings.
Hotdayum, I was just recommended this and man, great stuff. This is all stuff I have been saying but in a more comedic yet straightforward way. I still like 3 and think its fun, but I also think its one of the worst in terms of difficulty, world choice, characters and whatnot. The interactions are good, in fact, I think its on par with 1 with things like the Rock Em Sock Em Robots in the Toy Box and the underwater chests in Port Royal. I also think the level design is really neat, and the combat is still fun imo. However, the way the game holds your hand is insane and is pretty lame about it. I've beaten every game (besides Re:CoM of course) at level 1 Proud/Crit and omg is 3 just sooooo much easier than the others. Edit: love the music choices btw :) Ratchet and Clank is the most fun series to me and Tekken 4, SM64, Blazblue and KoF are always great to hear
KH3 has its positives, but since this was a "why it's bad" video I only focused on the bad. I actually had the world layouts listed as a topic to put in this video, but after replaying it for the video I realized that it was actually quite enjoyable and left it out. KH3 is on the brink of being actually good from my perspective, but they just haven't quite gotten there IMO. And if there's one thing they aren't lacking in 3, its gameplay options. I do have to respect how many things you can do, even if I personally dislike the quality of some of it.
Amazing video on breaking down KH3, the editing and script is *chef's kiss* ! I was hyped for KH3 when it first came out, at the time I've been playing through all the games for the first time back to back leading up to its release. (I got into the series back in 2016 with Unchained X lol) I pretty much enjoyed every aspect of the game at the time, from the story, gameplay, and music. ReMind was just more of what I liked about KH3. Now that the hype has settled down after ReMind, I honestly don't enjoy replaying through the game again. The enemies as you've mentioned are a chore to fight, the worlds (to me at least) feel too big and drag on for too long, the combat is still enjoyable imo but is kinda moot given the enemies aren't that engaging. The only thing I still enjoy about 3 is the plot and writing (to a certain degree), even though it's convoluted and may be hit or miss for some. Having said all that, I still get a lot of enjoyment out of replaying the first two mainline games, especially KH1. The combat is much more engaging and enjoyable in 1 given that Sora felt more grounded and combos were faster to execute. The tech system was very satisfying to play with and kept enemy encounters fresh since you were rewarded for exploiting enemy weaknesses. KH2 built upon the great combat of 1 with a bit more flare having added reaction commands, drive forms, and limits. (Sorry if the comment is a bit of a read, I was just really compelled to engage in the discussion.)
No worries, this isn't even the longest comment here. There's a sort of "nostalgia block" that I try to put on games when I go back to them, so for this review for example, I actually ended up finding and appreciating some things from 3 that I had missed before (though I'm still not a fan), and there were some negative things from 1 and 2 that I had overlooked. Obviously no one is aware of what I cut from the video's initial draft, but as you can tell I still felt strongly enough about 3 to say something. Going back to see if a game you played years ago still holds up is a lot of fun. I did this with Ratchet and Clank a few years back and realized that I similarly liked 1 and 2 way more than 3, which was the opposite of how I felt when I was a kid. I'm glad you liked the video.
I think my two biggest complains were the game felt too easy on proud and the level world designs were awful. I felt like it was just mash the attack button and you win. I felt the frozen world was absolute garbage and I felt like I didn't know where I was most of the time, was I making progress or not? Some felt way too large that you don't really do much in terms of game progression wise like the pirates and big hero 6 level
I liked 3 because of the gameplay options it gives you. There isn't a fighting style that's not viable, which I think is great. You can use combos, magic, shotlocks, flowmotion attacks, summons, multiple keyblades and their forms... And all of those options are actually usable and fun (except attractions). It keeps you from just mashing X to win, which is a great flaw in KH2 and makes it kinda tedious when you're not fighting bosses, in my opinion.
I feel like after kh dream drop Distance nomorah really had no idea of the stroy he was trying to tell and I don't think he understood y people loved characters like Roxas and xion or the ff cast I honestly feel like they should have given kh to a stroy writer that knew the story they wanted and how to do it if any of this makes sense
I like 3 for all the reason you liked 2. To explain in further detail, while yes most issues if not every issue you brought up is entirely valid, I got to play it on Critical for my first play through and that was easily the hardest experience I have ever had in a game save for Elden Ring. While it’s tacked on and from an update and definitely not the version the game was designed with intention of being how player’s experience the game, it was the most rewarding time I’ve had with a Kingdom Hearts game. It made every useless ability beyond useful and I found myself begging for attractions as I became overwhelmed by enemies since they give you a moment of reprise and time to figure out what your doing, it made the enemies more memorable as I kept saying to myself “please just fucking die, I need to heal your the only source of health, why aren’t you dying, oh god, the one on the other side of the zone is ready for an attraction, please just let me walk one minute with being fed a foot.”
I'm excited for KH4 because I am hopeful after seeing their response on Re:Mind. It meant that there will definitely be improvements and the dev team is definitely learning. This is probably the best video explaining what makes KH3's combat not that great. I do feel like the devs were kinda hung up with the idea that Sora=floaty combat because Sora means sky and that could be his signature. I don't mind it if they know how to properly make it fun, and they're definitely learning from the way they make his movement super fluid and the way magic's execution works.
Yes, KH3’s story was rushed to get Nomura his ticket to KH VS 13. It sucks, because you can tell the people making the game had some passion behind it, but the director really wanted nothing to do with it, and to get it over with. Damn Nomura.
Story-wise, yes, it was rushed. Gameplay-wise, absolutely not. It's clear that even with, like, 3 extra development years, the gameplay would not have changed.
@@ShadowbannedAccount Nah bro, gameplay and world design was rushed too. Look at the last Disney world, San Fransokyo. The world has no unique enemies of its own besides bosses, and the level design is just one big room that you explore twice with no substantial changes aside from the time of day. And no, putting metal on Olympus enemies doesn’t count as “unique” enemies. Plus the story of the world is all over the place with no real focus, which shows to me at least that it was rushed. Scala and the Keyblade Graveyard also seem rushed, as the Graveyard is just a small maze, and Scala isn’t even explorable in the base game. Not to mention The Final World, which is just a big box you run around to grab Sora’s, before just becoming an empty room. The entire endgame wanted to get itself over with, and to me it would seem it was the result of Nomura wanting the story to get itself over with. The pacing of the narrative ties more into gameplay and level design than you’d think, as I wouldn’t doubt that the story trying to rush itself is the reason that the original worlds in the game are pretty unfinished. As for San Fransokyo, I have a feeling that they made that world last, because as far as I recall, it was one of the last worlds they showed off in trailers.
I'm only excited about KH4 because rumors suggest that Nomura's going on a Smash Ultimate hunt for all the talent that worked on KH2FM that later left Square Enix. It's a mostly unfounded rumor based on the speculation and "research" of one dedicated 4chan user - there’s a lengthy writeup that gets posted every now and then, so I don’t have it on me since threads get deleted - but it'd be neat if it were true.
Brilliant video: the writing, the quality, the humor... Really, dissing on KH3 with R&C music in the background is just perfection; you gained (at least) a new sub.
There was a lot of love and passion put into Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2. It feels like 3 was just a sign of the developers saying” you waited for years for this, this is about all we can offer. I don’t know if the endless spin offs caused them to be so bored of their product or the fact that the spin offs made the story so over complicated. 3 should have came out years after 2 and if they wanted the birth by sleep game to connect to it that would’ve been easy they could of brought in those characters.
21:38 I'm gonna be honest, coming from God of War, the "action" commands were pretty lackluster. I could not believe that the devs thought that a one button action command was a good idea. 25:58 That gave me a good chuckle
I quite liked KH3. I first played it only last year when it finally got a PC release. This included the remind dlc so I had access to all of the small improvements that were brought to the original. One of the best improvements was the pro codes where you can turn off attractions all together. I ended up turning them off after the first world because they were seriously annoying. The combat never bothered me too much. I thought it was pretty weird that you could infinitely chain air combos at basically the start of the game, but overall it felt fine to me. I really enjoyed the story even though it did have low points. I haven't played every kingdom hearts game, but I know most of their stories and appreciated how it didn't bother trying to over explain things to newcomers. I had issues with the worlds. I had a friend ask me what my favorite was and I couldn't really tell because they all felt only okay compared to previous games. Maybe it's just nostalgia, but it felt like there were much more memorable places in previous games. Monsters Inc especially didn't feel like there was a "place" to be or something that was very memorable from the movies other than the work room where the doors come in. The land of Corona felt like a big Forest hallway until you got to the town. Arendelle especially felt very one note. I was also disappointed by most characters not being voiced by their original actors especially when compared to the earlier games. Even with all that stuff, the game just feels so fucking good. The ending made me tear up multiple times and it just makes me happy that it exists, flaws and all.
the reason i’m excited for kh4 isn’t because i loved kh3 so much i need to see more. so much as it is that the first two games made me fall in love with the series and i know that what made those games good in the first place is still imbedded within the soul of kingdom hearts. although to put it simply, i love this stupid game and im just along for the ride at this point.
Still annoyed with the treatment FF got. To be told how pivotal all these Disney characters like Finn or Woody or Elsa are supposed to be... or characters like Aladdin or Ariel or Simba or Jack. When literally any character who really mattered to the main story in KH1 showed up in Hollow Bastion at the end, or soon thereafter. Which included FF characters. People wanna go on an on about how one of every two visits to the Disney worlds in KH2 are filler, meanwhile who's present in the main story worlds for arguably the more important events? Who are we helping fight off 1000 heartless? Who got people fanboying and fangirling just by stepping into frame? Pooh? Mushu? Herc? Cloud alone gets more hype than shirtless Mickey. Even people who don't know Auron can feel the vibes of FFX's story drifting off of him in the underworld. And at least the FF characters were never able to rehash their own storylines beat-for-beat either. Nomura needs to check the privileges the series has. If nothing else, Disney is what convinced parents to willingly pick up the game for their kids. But FF is a big part of what initially made people pay any mind to it. Back in the day, FF bosses were what made people see some depth in the combat before the final mix versions were well-known. The promise that you could have an odd combination of Disney with the renowned storytelling of a Square RPG, with Square characters. To have their FF counterparts taken away when Sora was as much a consistent friend to them as he is to Herc? Fakeness. If the TWEWY crew don't show in KH4, then what was the point? In some ways, I'm hoping Disney takes a bigger backseat in KH4, even if it means letting Nomura just make VersusXIII. I for one am more than willing to play an entire game made of nothing but the non-disney worlds.
This video is extremly biased and there is certainly many things I absolutly agree with. This game is heavaly flawed is many aspects: The Disney worlds feel like they don't matter and were just an obsticle to clear before the story actually started. Which made the Pacing horrible. KH3 feels like it really starts when you get to save Aqua and this is a problem. The fact that the best parts of it are behind the Re:Mind DLC is also bad, but the game get's sold pretty much everywhere with the DLC tagged on. Attractions were a blatant mistake, It also feels like they got the messege loud and clear since they give you 2 ways you can turn them off. Like you said they were just basic nukes with invinsability on top of it. Now onto things I have to dissagree. The movement in KH3 is war from beeing bad and it's far and wide the best movement KH has ever had, specially from a starting point. What do I mean by that you may asking. KH1s movement was sluggish it's also excusable because it was the first in the series. KH2s movement was great but the game didn't give you an opportunity to actually use it, which then only came with the Final Mix in the Cavern of Remembrece, which can also be considered DLC just before DLC was a thing and it wasn't really available outside of japan for many years. But KH2s movement at the start was abysmaly bad as well. For thouse who didn't remember KH2 Sora had no Dodgeroll at the start, which means that up until Sora got Wisdom Form leveled up he was stuck and could only block. Which is probably the reason reaction commands even exist. How you level up the different drive forms isn't really explained in game either. The Drive Forms themselfs are level capped until you unlock the next form. High Jump comes from Valorant, Quick Run, which was the dodgeroll alternative for many years, comes from leveling up wisdom, Arial Dodge comes from Master, Dodge roll from limit and Glide from Final. Obvious for you and me, not obvious for many many people that started KH2 in the first place. This absoluty is a point of critisim towards KH2 which gets forgotten. KH3 Sora on the other hand has fantastic movement from the start that gets upgraded naturaly through the story, meaning you have to pass certain points before you can use or equip something. His walk is fast and flowmotion gives you some extra options which is nice, but you can turn them of if you don't like to. You can block mid air now, which is really nice. And Airstep is the single best thing added to KH since the drive forms, I will die on this hill. The single best part of KH3 is it's movement and how you can use it in different ways. It clearly was a focus and absolutly far from perfect but I can't say that it was bad. The combat beeing floaty isn't not necceserly bad either. For me it was a logical progression and it allowed me to see the bosses Bodies instead of watching the feet 24/7. The combat in KH2 is the one with the most deeph to it for sure and it's sad that KH3 sacrafices much of that deeph for accessebility, for lack of a better word. KH3 has the best collection of superbosses in the series, you didn't rly touched on thouse aside from a passing statement about them beeing extremly late into the game, which is fair. But KH3s combat system shines in thouse bossfights specificly and you have to learn the ins and outs of it for this. Same thing with KH2 the superbosses also fulfilled the same niche. It's for thouse who want to be challenged. Things that actually make KH3s combat feel worse is not the floatyness it's that it all feels the same. KH3s approach to combat has the following: Basic combos Magic Team Attacks Attractions Links Magic and Basic combos can be used together for different looking ones, which is the only real combination one can experiment with. Fire Blizzard Water are bascicly the same magic with different flavor. Fire has better hoaming, Blizzard let's you scate on it trail if you use it on the ground and Water gives you a Barrier that damages before it becomes a projectile. Every one of the upgraded versions just makes a bigger explosion at the end. Aero and Thunder are in the same kathegorie of just beeing an AOE spell with Thunder beeing much fast to use and Aero let's you use flomotion, just upwards. Both just turn into screen nukes at the end. Team attacks: just different looking screennukes. Attractions: Screennukes with added invisability fot the better part of a minute. Links: Screen Nukes with added Invisablity for the better part of a minute. Keyblade finishers are also just big screen nukes, but they at least have different looking combos. This made most battles trivial and therefore didn't rly give a challenge to the player and just made fights feel like they are just there for padding reasons. Which in an Character Action game is basicly always the case but if you start feeling like this then this is clearly flawed. They added the Procodes on top of the No Experience Ability to make up for that, I did multiple runs with different combinations and Level 1 runs actually feel like you have to understand the enemys to fight them. But this beeing something optional makes me think they just made it this easy just for newcommers to get into the franchise. Which is probably the reason Keyblade transformations are not on the Menu. KH2s manuing midfight is a pretty weird learning curve for newcommers and it's something the game get's criticized to this very day. Having just 4 Options on the Menu makes is probably the right call in this instance, I just happen to dissagree with this decision because of my liking to the drive forms of 2, but I get it why they made it this way. There is much more I could write about but don't want to write this all day. Just that KH3 isn't a bad game, far from it. It has really good ideas in terms of combat and if they Iron out these things than I am absolutly going to play KH4. Yozoras Bossfight is something I very much enjoyed and if they have more of thouse coming, I'm all for it. I will be critical where it needs to be just as I am with 2 and 3. But I'm looking for 4 just because Re:Mind actually made me really like the game because it forced me to interact with it. Something I absolutly didn't do before. BTW: I appologies for my poor grammer here. English isn't my first lenguage and I am writing this on the fly so. Either way, Thank you for reading, whoever took the time. Have a nice day.
Despite the floatiness, the reason I played through KH3 was because the game just felt so SMOOTH to play. Combat animations, the speed of movement (with the exception of the "down" direction), and the combat versatility was just innately satisfying to play. I still prefer KH2 combat, and KH1 combat has higher stakes for each decision you make (truly the Dark Souls of video games, I know), but it all felt so fluid. Even if most Kingdom Hearts dialogue makes me want to scratch my head at high velocity with a rock.
It took all of my might to not actually say something about Dark Souls in the video when talking about the intentionality of KH1's combat. But yeah, besides magic being busted, sliding while casting genuinely felt better than magic ever felt before.
Why is the lock on so bad? It's not a big deal on Proud because the game is easy. But on Critical enemies hit you hard so you need a job functioning camera. It's awful.
I can tell I'm getting a glimpse at a TH-cam channel that will be huge a few years from now. Given your size, your editing, comedic timing, and presentation are top notch. The content you cover feels substantial without being overly indulgent, you consistently sprinkle in humor to keep the viewer entertained when discussing a pretty niche/dry topic without putting the video's main purpose on pause to do so, and you wisely decided to address aspects of the game that haven't been analyzed to death by others (outside of a bit of overlap with Bl00dyBizkitz's vid "The Consequences of Floaty Combat in Kingdom Hearts.") Maybe I'm just biased because I also really didn't like the game, but it's refreshing seeing someone talk about Kingdom Hears 3 as a video game first and foremost. It seems like most people that discuss it fall into one of two camps: Those that praise it talk about it like it's nothing more than a vehicle for lore that they're so invested in, that the quality of actually playing it as a game never really mattered to them. Most people that criticize it, on the other hand, seem to come from a place of "they ruined the story" or they're complete outsiders to the franchise and make a surprised Pikachu face when the whole thing feels alien and cringe to them. Kingdom Hearts has a devoted following obsessed with the huge cast and the expanded universe, but it only cultivated that by being fun to play first and foremost. No one's gonna stick around long enough to read 500 secret Ansem's reports unless beating up Heartless is fun and the level design is engaging. tl:dr: great takes, great presentation, and i'm looking forward to seeing this channel blow up
I'm not getting KH4 Square can shove it. At first I like KH3 but the more I thought about it and the more I played it I was like...why is it like this and why they made it this way? Me and my friend both agreed this game was rushed as hell. I can play any other KH game but when it comes to KH3 it pissed me off and the DLC crap didn't help. I didn't buy it because all of that should have been in the game. I've seen all of the DLC has and im not impress about it. KH2 Final Mix is so much better than this crap. Nomura did say that KH3D is the real Kingdom Hearts 3 which make sense if you look back at it. I know some don't like KH3D but I do. Now adays when I play the KH game I play all of them expect for KH3. That game I will NEVER play again.
3's story felt a lot weaker than 1 & 2, and I can't quite pin why. I'd say it's that the worlds didn't feel as meaningful, but I had it pointed out to me that there was almost always something in each world. So why not? I feel it's because there doesn't seem to be a good *reason* for Sora to be going through each of these worlds. He's just wandering around because grandpa Yen Sid said so, until suddenly they're at the Keyblade Graveyard and the story quickly wraps up. As for gameplay, I miss drive forms. Form changes just felt weird, not as fun, or as cool as drive forms were. Drive forms felt a lot more deliberate and powerful. How you got them was as intentional as you can get- you unlock them and select them from the command menu. You felt their power, and they grew with you the more you used them, and you were rewarded for using them with cool abilities. Formchanges turned your keyblade into something completely random and you had no incentive to use them for any other reason than they're powerful. Them appearing as an option also felt completely random. That little mystery meter was frustrating to try and grasp, too. I never quite registered the combat with regular enemies, but you make really good points. KH1 was way more engaging with how you interacted with enemies. Hell, even reaction commands in 2 feel like a gimmick compared to 1 on some level. In 3, I never even really needed to use Block until the data fights at the end of the DLC! Oh yeah, I disabled Attractions instantly. They seemed so needless and stupid. It just felt like a shoehorned in ad for theme park rides than a gameplay feature. I'm only hopeful for 4 because people have voiced their concerns and I hope Nomura has listened.
Storywise, it's entirely the worlds being unnecessary. The game tries to present reasons for where Sora goes but most of the time it's because... he wanted to? He's meant to be getting stronger to learn the power of waking but, not only does he just get it in the end, he also doesn't do much in relation to it before that point. KH1 and KH2's worlds had constant thematic ties and world-building. Sure, Sora was mostly there for the ride, but he was there for a reason. KH1 had him finding the keyholes to protect the worlds, KH2 had him, IIRC, opening connections between worlds. Not only that, but many scenes in the worlds reflected topics and issues Sora was tackling within himself. I specifically remember TNBC having Jack's relationship echo Sora and Kairi, a weak example, but an example nonetheless. KH3 he... laughs... fights... climbs a mountain twice. It all felt redundant as a consequence, unless you really loved the world you were in. It's not until Keyblade Graveyard really that those narrative ties return. Hell, even Twilight was weak with how it connected itself That's my take on the story, at least, but gameplay was just whatever to me until Re:Mind showed me what it could have been
this was the most disapointing game ever. it was "Beginning! Still beginning, still beginning? ENDING ENDING ENDING!! ENDING!!!" Buy the DLC for a better ending!
Entire reason y the box is important is bcuz the whole darkseeker thing started with the mom spawning an idea in xehanorts head hes also the reason the keyblade war happened, the story for kh is way more complicated and goes even further back than u think , u may consider tht box filler but its actually important , I do agree with the characteristics of the enemies , having boring enemies would definitely make a game boring however I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say the reason y the enemies dont seem the big of a problem anymore could be bcuz sora is way stronger now and maybe they made the gameplay show tht in a sense, I really dont know y final fantasy characters were cut but looks like we get more of them in 4 seeing as sora is in quadratum, maybe we'll get to see more serious worlds , seeing as kh so far has been mostly Disney oriented, I'm curious to see wht it'd be like with more final fantasy stuff outside of wht we saw so far in the franchise
100% agree with everything you said. I think it's ok if you like something but ignoring the flaws it might have is wrong and dangerous. I loved the series but 3 left me down and 4s trailer got me really worried about its future. Anyway loved your video and a big PLUS for the Blazblue and Under-night music in the background
at 9:40, well I don't think they advertised it but a big new change in gameplay of kh3 which you did not mention is switching keyblades on the fly or in a middle of a battle, thats something which was not possible in other games and sora carrying 3 keyblades.
Hey Kaze, have you ever thought of making a multiplayer mode for Yoshi Story? That would be so much fun, hackish for the camera controls but still fun.
I personally only really really enjoyed KH2, probably becuase i am such a gamplay guy. I replayed it multiple times, few times on critical, some times with different mods and i also really enjoy the randomizer. After i played through KH2 for the first time in like 2010, i played 1 and hated it... Later played through CoM, BBS and more. No one catched me nearly as hard as 2. Hopped 3 would be nice, but got really dissapointed when playing it at a friends place Tbh now i am no longer interessted in the series
My biggest issue with KH3 is for them to take away reaction commands! It's like if they just decided to take away magic in KH4. RC's felt just as ingrained and perfectly balanced for the combat as magic was in KH2. (Other than OP Reflect, and magic spam in final form)
Have you not gotten caught up with Union X, or even watched the Back Cover movie in the 2.8 collection? Scala is visually and narratively important because littered throughout the town are little hints and nods. The Clocktower on the clock/mural in ReMind was the clocktower from Daybreak Town. During the underwater section of the battle, you even see a flipped upside down ruined version of that same clocktower. Clearly the game is showing you that Scala is what became of the remains of Daybreak Town after the Keyblade War of centuries ago. Xehanort saying it's "the nexus from which all worlds spring" or such, is his own interpretation of his readings on the Age of Fairytales (the time of Union X), because back in the AoF, all worlds were one, and Daybreak Town was the hub from which Keyblade wielders resided. This is all info that we had before kh3 btw. We had heard Kairi's grandma's story about the world falling to darkness and being reborn at least twice, and Xehanort reiterates it and expands on it in his secret reports in BBS, and Chi was released in 2013, Unchained X in 2015 or so, and Union X was at the point where Lauriam and Elrena were revealed by KH3's release. Even then, you'd only truly *need* Back Cover (2017) to understand. That's not even mentioning the odd script covering the town, which also somehow shows up in KH3 Twilight Town, Mickey's library in DDD HD, and now is seen in Quadratum in the KH4 trailer, which should be interesting seeing as how Quadratum (as I believe Ansem calls it, Unreality) and the KH Reality should be entirely disconnected. Like that's interesting to me. Also hey can you like... not make sexual jokes about two different characters who are minors, that's kinda weird
I'm not caught up with Union X, but I think you somewhat misinterpreted what I was saying. I am aware that Scala is a callback to Daybreak, but my points are to emphasize what the worlds mean through visual design. I think callbacks are cool, and I like references to past games since it proves they exist and matter, but I want more visual information to tell me directly what a world is all about. Scala having only references to past games would imply that it exists solely as a reference, but every world should have a strong personal identity. If instead of keyblades, KH characters used drills, then a mining town would make sense. If they controlled fire, then things like hot air balloons being used for travel would make sense. The reason I focused on seafaring references was because I think, as a theme regarding Daybreak as a hub, it does work. It implies that travel is frequent enough to warrant focusing a world around travel. It's a good idea, but doesn't go any further than that base level, and once you step away from the "port" area, the seafaring theme almost completely dies out. To put it another way, if you've ever seen Avatar: The Last Airbender, when they get to Ba Sing Se, it doesn't just have pictures of the king and a bunch of earthbenders throwing rocks in a normal city, it devises methods of travel using earthbending (in this case, trains), all buildings are made of stone, the city walls are made of stone, the people wear the Earth Nation colors, etc. This makes you immediately aware of what the place is on a subconscious level, due to the extent to which it is themed. If no one explained Scala Ad Caelum to me, if I had no awareness of the lore, then the city would mean nothing to me. But even a first-time viewer of concept art would know what the End of the World is trying to show. So again, it's not that I didn't notice this stuff, it's that it wasn't really my point. Also, Kairi was 14 in KH1, and I was 8 at the time. She's technically older than me.
I think my biggest issue with the floaty feel of KH3 wasn't necessarily the time spent in the air, exactly. It was more so how the *first* boss faced (That being the classic Darkside), I was able to just... Attack up to his head. I jumped once. Mashed 'x'. And I was attacking his head. And I remained up there attacking his head until he died. This was, obviously, not something that could be accomplished in 1 or 2. If you wanted to attack the head of the first (Or second) Darkside you faced in KH1, you had to wait until he thrust his hand into the ground before running up his arm (Which netted the Tech points). In KH2, you had to wait until the Twilight Thorn lowered his head down onto the battle arena to attack it. In neither games could you just jump once and mash 'x' to reach the head of this large enemy.
Excellent vid. KH1 from the ps2 days was my jam but once players are required to own/borrow a gba, psp, 3ds, mobile phone and who knows what else to keep up with a convoluted never ending story I was resigned to the idea that anything bearing the Kingdom Hearts name would be a waste of time. Even with 2 I already started to become jaded. Nowadays, I'm only waiting for a deep discount for the first 2 games on the Epic store so I can revisit the 2 games and maybe MAYBE give the series another shot.
i feel like nomura and his team just made kh 1 & 2 accidently good(every game has flaws), maybe the team that worked on these 2 games was much more into it than him, the other games were all well unique to say the least, but i liked BBB and DDD was kinda fun, too. Overall kh3 feels rushed (even though they had so much time) and not really deep like some of the other games, they just kinda put things toghether without much thought, the combat feels floaty and sluggish in a way, just like the dialogues and story. The conclusion to the story was pretty bad as well, xehanort misunderstood bad guy c'mon you have to build up towards something like this and not just throw it at the end like it suddenly means something. The end didnt make any sense if you have followed the story from the beginning. Sora somehow sounds more childish and dumber than in DDD, which i dont understand why, since he is supposed to be more grown up now. Also every character telling him he is weaker doesnt make any sense again, even though he beat them all and has even more tools to beat them now, oh bht he doesnt have the power of waking, who cares he is easily stronger than any other so called keyblade master and even pulls the same power out of his ass to save anyone when he needs it, even though riku supposedly has it as well, for some reason he cant save aqua, but sora can. Also the whole reason sora even travels to these new worlds is to somehow find the power of waking, which means all of the disney stories are filler and useless to the main plot, since they dont connect to the main plot at all, he does not fin the power of waking im any of them and the organization isnt fought in any of them exept when they summon some giant heartless monster or trash talk and than run away again. Kh x disney x ff x ?, should be the formula going forward, i thought of kh as disney x ff, but even though i didnt like it that the ff char where left out this game has to many issues to complain about that. Its almost as if nomura doesnt like or understand the kh games at all and was just salty about ff versus 13.
In my case, I enjoy the mods. Particularly, character swapping, especially with revamped or rebalanced movesets, and co-op. That's about it. Without mods, no real reason I can find to play it.
Mostly agree and think KH deserves even more lambasting, but have different ideas to each conclusion. In response to each part. Gravity: I would say part of the problem is that "floatiness" is in large part "unresponsiveness". I blame 90% of this on Magic Flash, some formchanges, and guarding in the air, but KH feels more unresponsive than it probably is, and at least the team has been improving with each game since BBS. Though a trailer analysis revealed that there was better animation canceling for specific attacks in certain trailers, so maybe they know the right answer and choose wrong despite that. For improvements the only thing I would add is speeding up the canceling on the combos and don't have blocking freeze Sora midair. Attractions: This can be solved with one simple rational: The best attraction is the train, so other attractions can be better by being like the train. Tailor them to and for specific bosses and setpieces. With how many bosses don't have a gimmick or do but it's "do basic combat but better" there's definitely room for them. For example in the frosty wolf fight when the timer gimmick is set instead of just fighting small wolves you get to use the blaster attraction to hunt them down. Original Worlds: In my opinion the final world should've been the Final World, and the Final World should've been Kingdom Hearts. That said thematically Scala ad Caelum could've worked if it had been used as the tutorial level (playing as either Eraqus or Xehanort) in its shiny state, and it's broken state in the final boss as both a call-back to KH1 and shows what Xehanort lost that could (especially considering his retconned goal) drive him. Enemies: The only improvements I could see making (and improvements I desperately want for games like this in general but that's beside the point) basic enemies better would be for them to be able to act with a degree of intelligence, especially in regards to being able to block/dodge and being both more vulnerable and aggressive. After all Sora's screen-clearing moves are only as good as the damage they do. Humanoid bosses should take this to the extreme that they're practically PvP. Boss Aqua is powerful but she's incredibly artificial, I'd take a halfway decent enemy version of Playable Aqua any day.
To me kh3 feels like comfort food. Both this and the borderlands series are games I can come back to when I just wanna relax and enjoy laid back spectacle before going back to more hardcore games like souls and such. Sometimes easy/mindless colorful fun is nice and my kids recognize the characters so that's neat also.
I can't emphatize enough how much the devs improved in remind. they added the midrange options the game lacked like flashstep, improved/added cancel windows to reduce the clunk, dark/light/double forms are far superior to the vanilla transformations and their boss design somehow went from trash tier to actually goated. I actually think KH4 will be pretty good, at least in gameplay. just let them keep unreal engine for the love of god.
Can't imagine they'll switch from Unreal. KH3 assets and code should be able to move smoothly into the next game, swapping engines would just hurt their workflow.
I never liked kh3 to begin with, (KH2 fan here) but what made me love it was definitely the data fights and remind. It showed me that the dev team was relearning how to do good KH combat again. Also I love the kh plot minus a bunch of shit in 3
definitely agree with all the flaws with KH3, the attractions felt like a cop out, and at certain points I did feel like "ok can we get back to the real strory. I can see why some would want to throw it away, but I finished the game mostly to understand what Xehanort true goal was and to see what happens at the end. Also pretty bummed they took out final fantasy.
KH3 was 100% carried by nostalgia. Wanting to see how the story 'finished' / progressed. There is a reason I played it once, and never touched it again. On the other hand, i'll go back and playthrough KH1 & KH2 on critical because they are damn fun. 3? No fuckin shot
good points on all accounts too! The only reason I didn't completely bash it after playing was the last 2 hour sequence was practically a fever dream fan fiction of a resolution. Felt so out of place it just worked 😅
It was bought for both that conclusion to the story and the desire to see new Disney worlds. I think on the latter it delivered fairly well... although like a lot of worlds in the games it did feel a tad bit empty.
The Toy Story world was awesome, but again... so big, so empty.
I will play any other Kh game over and over again but KH3 I will NEVER play again.
@@alexdasilva2578The last 2 hours made me hate the game even more. You're right it was like fanfiction, poorly written, BAD fan fiction. "Hey, you're ventus right? You're pretty good" makes me want to barf in my mouth. Instead of all these characters interacting for the whole game and actually doing stuff, we spend hours doing nothing and then magically all the main characters show up at the end and fight all the main villains with completely uninspired dialogue that felt awful almost like square enix was like "SEE they interacted, you happy now?" What a way to end the entire saga we played through for like a decade, what a waste of time.
@@alexdasilva2578this is a while after this comment but I actually did decide to pick up the game again after completing it and found some interesting things. Obviously playing it on any difficulty besides critical would just be annoying, but if you didn't know there is a setting in the abilities tab that allows you to turn off attractions. I've been playing with this on and it actually gives a challenge that really does make you think about how to tackle each enemy (after dying for the 4th time in a continue section and forcing yourself to actually defeat every enemy encounter before continuing)
3 was a mess in a lot of areas, but Square had Nomura all over the place and I think he couldn't properly focus. Now add Disney meddling into that. I hope they learned all of the lessons they needed to for 4, otherwise another of my favorite game series will just go away.
I knooooww😢
Boy denial runs deep in this fandom huh
@@asmrtpop2676 Wom womp
You are definitely right because VII Remake was very good. Even if it has problems. It was a lot more focused.
Whether or not that's true, don't expect things to get better. Companies do not learn, they repeat mistakes and sink great projects.
KH III was only ok but certainly had massive amounts of issues that should have been addressed before release. The Disney world stories felt like they happened without your presence meanwhile KH 1/2 you had to be there to drive it forward (or at least that's what I can remember of it all). Meanwhile in KH III it felt like we were in a movie theater and it was going to happen with or without us regardless. So that's why it was bad in this aspect, now the actual storyline (primarily Sora and the gang) just felt like we were finishing off a story arch for Ventus/Terra/Aqua more than our own story instead. While enjoyable characters, it just felt like we already finished the story in KH II for Sora/Riku, everything else was just a strange add-on that looked like it was put on as a side dish rather than the main one. Still left with only questions with what happens next because it felt like there was no closure on if the nobodies/heartless are still lingering around or not (most likely). Where my FF characters at?
Gameplay wise, it was only fun during the boss fights, and yea, absolutely agree with that aspect of it being a little bit too dull IMO outside of the rest of the game, with the exclusion of trying to find the implanted mickey mouse collect-a-thon going on, didn't engage with the food system from rat boi either and probably was missing out on stuff but didn't care much either. No sephorith fight which was in every single game felt weird but there's a point where I'd agree, there's a point where it has to stop too so, kind of a double edged sword I can admit.
Keyblade forms felt copy pasta'd to an extent with some overlapping each other instead of being their own form and it shows, the Drive forms in KH weren't perfect, valor being the one that was only ok, while the others had a stronger presence or Final Form's over dominance of the game once you get it.
OST Wise it was great, but legit probably I've listened to the music more on youtube than I did playing the game after beating it once, and I played KH I and II multiple times over (primarily the choices in the beginning, seeing what goes different back when I didn't have quick and easy access to guides and such).
So, I guess to try to put it into a box, problem with KH III is that it was just maybe it being a near average of a game, it's flaws were more apparent than say KH II's were to me. It took far too long to get what we got realistically it felt like a rushed product in the end but they had far more time and experience to get things right with KH III but it felt like the passion may or may not been there, but the product that we got was either too high expectations after KH II. It could and SHOULD (I cannot put enough emphasis on SHOULD either, needs to be bold and 72 size font for me to get this message through) have been far better but fell far shorter than it should have.
I agree. On the keyblade forms part, maybe this is just a personal taste thing, but transforming the keys into spears, guns, staffs, etc. really hurt me in a visual design kind of way. Like, it's called the keyblade, not the staffblade, or gunblade, or whatever. Wisdom form let me shoot but it was from my key, which felt more on-brand. And the fact that you would get multiple claws or hammers when the keyblade pool is already pretty small made them feel samey. But overall I just found most of the new forms to be uninteresting.
Your rant about the gravity is spot-on, it' THE biggest problem I have with 3 since launch
I myself have a problem with some of the Disney worlds. For some worlds, it doesn't feel like Sora, Donald, and Goofy have any baring on the plot of that world. Take a look at Pirates of the Carribean; the story largely happens without the trio, as they're busy collecting crabs and just join at the end to fight Davy Jones. Arendelle? You're mostly playing catch-up. The only interactions they have are meeting Elsa (where Larxene repeatedly gets in their way); helping Anna, Kristoff, and Sven rebuild Olaf (where they eventually separate from Sora and the others when Heartless arrive); reaching Elsa's castle (to fight Marshmallow); they follow after Hans but don't interact with him; and when they reach the climax of the plot of Frozen (Anna turning into ice), they're thrust into a fight against the boss Heartless. When the boss is defeated, the plot concludes without any real help from Sora and his friends.
I think the only worlds where Sora's existence really mattered were the ones that told its own original story; Big Hero 6, Monster's Inc, and maybe Toy Story?
Compare to Kingdom Hearts 2.
Port Royal: You have to help Will save Elizabeth and help Jack defeat Barbossa. When you return, you have to put an end to the curse and free Jack from said curse.
Mount Olympus: You help Hercules defeat the Hydra when it attacks the Coliseum and help Herc save Meg after she was kidnapped by Hades.
Land of Dragons: Help Mulan join Li Shang's army and help her clear out Heartless. When her identity is discovered, Sora, Donald and Goofy are kicked out of the army alongside Mulan. You help her defeat the Mongolian Army with the avalanche and save the emperor from Shan-Yu.
This deserves more views, your editing and humor is top tier ! Great vid, growing up with the KH franchise I was disappointed with 3, with 2 still being the best for me.
Thanks! I'm trying my best.
@@feedjompo Tbh your humor reminds me a LOT of the better genshin youtubers like MistahFeet and Max0r (except not nearly as many visual jokes per second lol)
No. The less views, the better. This video is just another cut and paste hate video for the sake of hating something. Not funny, insightful or accurate.
KH3 is awesome and the best in the Dark Seeker Saga.
@Feed Jompo No you're not. -_-
@@goldenheart9503 u sound miserable
Gravity break would be a cool combat modifier where pressing o or square while attack gave you an attack that just pushed you and enemies hit in an area brought to the ground.
Amazing video, this video kinda reminded me why hot take I prefer KH1 combat the most. Idk why but it just felt the most engaging due to the reasons you listed like rewarded for finding enemies counters, more grounded simple and clean combat, and imo best AI in the kh franchise. KH2 was great and fun too but it definitely was the start of where the combat was giving sora so much tools where you can blitz through the enemies with kh3 being the result of what happens if you give him even more tools without much interaction.
Yeah, a lot of people say KH1 is clunky and stiff, but I think they're being overly critical. KH1 combat has its charm for sure. Glad you liked the video.
Disagree on 2 things:
1. KH1's combat is not the best. Casting magic on the ground is too slow, that most people prefer jumping before casting magic to reduce recovery period
2. KH2 did not give Sora too much tools.
KH3's combat is NOT the result of KH2's. It's actually worse than KH2. KH2's combat could've been so, so, so much better in KH3. For example, you can make Wisdom and Final Form to always cast the fourth tier magic. Imagine KH2 with grand magic, Aero, different implementations of Water (same as KH1's Aero, for example), 2 shortcut buttons resulting in 8 actions at once (L2 and R2), integration of Shotlocks and Links into the Drive gauge, and many more.
@@ShadowbannedAccount He didnt say KH1s combat was the best. He said its what he 'preferred'.
I like 1 and 2 equally for different reasons.
With 1, I kind of look at it like an RPG with action qualities.
With 2 I kind of look at it as an action game with RPG qualities.
3 just...it is like it is trying to be both equally, while doing poorly at both, at least imo.
KH2 gives you a lot of tools, but you have a lot of flexibility on when to/if you use them in a fight. KH3 has the same amount of tools, but makes it very linear/random so they're more a test of luck than actual skill
The reason I like kh3 is because the story, while not very well paced, in my opinion, it has some pretty epic moments and cool character interactions. The story is one of the weaker parts about this game though. I also like the combat, even if it’s floaty because I find it enjoyable to smash through the enemies, but I do agree that they aren’t very memorable. By far my favorite thing about this game, is the exploration at least for the disney worlds. The worlds in this game are huge with lots of stuff to do and things to collect, and each one is very unique. This is why I like kh3 even though it’s really flawed
Yeah, I can see the appeal of the larger, less room-like worlds for sure, and I liked wandering around some of the safe town areas like in the Tangled world hunting for emblems. As for the story and gameplay, I think I'd compare it to a fireworks show. It's flashy and cool when it wants to be, but lacks substance. But even with my cold, cold heart, even I still felt some feelings in some of the scenes, like Xion's return and the Kairi/Sora combo attacks.
Thanks for the reply, I didn't focus on the world design because I thought it was generally fine, but it also didn't cross my mind as a major positive.
Liking a game for story is crazy
@@moosesues8887 tell that to final fantasy x fans. I they say otherwise, they’re lying
@@tatarsauce6314 I enjoyed the combat of FF 10, but the story was mid and I truly disliked Tidus.
Ngl man not including remind I found the character interactions to just be unsatisfying in kh3. Even remind is lacking but it makes up a bit more.
Wow totally underrated channel. Feels like a video someone with way more subs would put out.
Thanks fella, I poured my (kingdom) heart and soul into it
@@feedjompo You poured your dark filled heart and vitriolic soul into this, for sure.
That comment about 30 hours of filler is how I felt after playing it. Especially when we get the whole "the power was inside him all along" stuff, I felt like the previous worlds were more or less a waste of time. The most fun I had was the boss rush at the end of the game despite the labyrinth ones playing similarly, but I'm kinda sad that's the case. Now I'm just looking forward to kh4 just to see where the story goes next, plus I've played the others (save for CoM) so it'd feel strange quitting now
That's the sunk cost fallacy at work my friend, it's a hard habit to break.
Honestly, if they just kept up plot momentum through each world it wouldn't feel like such a waste. KH1 did this best, with keyblade lore being built up along with the Disney villains actually being the primary bad guys with evil plans. I think that's why the toy story level felt the most important story-wise to me, it focused not on retelling the movie, but focused on "the power of friendship" and interacting with the characters. Somewhat shallow, but it doesn't need to be a ton to make it feel like a world hopping adventure.
Who wouldn't want Sora, Donald, and Goofy to visit their world, at this point? Lol
I feel they did Sora Dirty in the ending...
The problem was that it wasn't even good filler content, but rather bad and boring content.
@@Joe_334 for sure, despite what was shown in the game and what YX said, it feels like "you can use the PoW to save anyone and travel through time as much as you like,
but if you DARE to save Kairi, you must be removed from existance, AT ALL COST!
What ultimately did it for me was the absence of Final Fantasy characters.
I was heartbroken, and downright angry.
I enjoyed and give kudos to the original characters of Kingdom Hearts - they were wonderful in their own right, but I originally played *and* returned because of the Final Fantasy characters and was absolutely elated at how they were incorporated into the game and storyline.
( The following should might be a shocker given my username) For example, I LOVED the way Cloud and Auron were tied into the Underworld of Kingdom Hearts 2.
I had anticipated this game for so long, having played *ALL* installments and keeping up with the convoluted story only to be let down so much - Its an absolute shame to have been bamboozled.
Also, I was really surprised to see that Fox News Channel 10 clip, that from Phoenix, AZ! Haha.
Convoluted story is a stretch
agree I'm playing kh to be able to fanboying about ff characters apparence (Squall, Auron, cloud, sephiroth were all great). I just don't understand how you can misunderstand this much your audience
I'm hesitantly hopeful for KH4 entirely because of what they ended up adding to KH3 post release.
All the patches and updates that improved the flow of combat, letting you cancel almost any attack into a block or dodge, the DLC adding new combat abilities that essentially replaced the shitty old ones, the pro codes let you disable some of the worst mechanics (mainly attractions), and the new Data Org and additional Secret Boss are both legitimately superior to their counterparts in KH2.
The absolute fuckup of their's that was base game KH3 was ultimately the greatest learning experience Osaka Team has _ever_ had, and they immediately learned from their mistakes, and then proceeded to fix them the best they could without the budget to overhual the game completely.
They now have KH4 as a fresh canvas to work with, the budget and development time of a full new game to implement all the lessons they clearly learned from KH3.
The part that makes me hesitant is the fact the Nomura has dumped an absolute metric ton of story content into the mobile games, meaning it's going to be an absolute nightmate for KH4 to have a story that can actually hook anyone who hasn't spent 5+ hours watching all those cutscenes off TH-cam.
Why oh WHY has he made those games THAT important, WHY didn't he save that shit for an actual side game like BBS or DDD, something people would actually want to play???
Instead he gives us a rhythm game spinoff with 5 minutes of important story information for KH4 tacked on.
This man has a serious issue with letting spin offs be spin offs, it started with Chain of Memories being turned into and interlude between 1 and 2, Days BBS and DDD were actual side games that don't fall under this camp, but then we have Coded getting the most half assed bit of canonicity in the whole series, when it was only intended to be a cheap KH experience for _pre touch screen mobile phones,_ and after that he feels compelled to fill the gacha game with what is literally the majority of the series plot at this point, when it really should've just been a simple telling of the events of the Keyblade War and nothing more, canon but not essential, background lore, instead we have 1000 year old Ventus and body hopping Luxu, along with the living mystery box that is the Master of Masters.
Nomura is a sinner guiding foolish lambs to the hell that is KH4. Do not fall to his wicked ways.
I think he got bonked on the head with a brick and just writes whatever he wants, and usually it's groanworthy. Legitimately the gameplay will probably be better than 3, but I do not trust Nomura to write anything good ever again.
@@feedjompo What happened is that the lead writer who worked on both 1 and 2, Kazushige Nojima, left after 2.
It's literal George Lucas syndrome, Nomura's an ideas man, but leave him without anyone to interpret and challenge his ideas, and he'll create an unnecessary volume of garbage.
@@Cri_Jackal Well, that certainly explains why the first major game after 2 was literally the star wars prequels, instead replace generational tragedy with the power of friendos.
@@lpfan4491 To be fair, BBS is definitely better than the Phantom Menace, they actually gave us suprising but sensical reveals and plot twitsts in that game.
And back when it was just BBS giving us substantial new plot material, KH3 was shaping up to have some pretty cool pay offs, but then came DDD and KHX.
Yeah, the changes made in the Remind patch brought it much closer to the quality of KHIIFM's combat. The main thing that would improve the game for me would be adding a few Org XIII battles throughout the game. Sure, they aren't actually trying to defeat Sora at this point, but they could still fight you for their own entertainment or out of petty revenge.
Apart from Barbosa, every single boss you fight before the Keyblade Graveyard is a big monster. Dream Drop Distance had the same problem.
I don't play the mobile games but I don't feel like they were needed to understand KHIII. The numbered games are all played from Sora's perspective, so if he doesn't know what happened in the Keyblade War then the player doesn't need to know either.
Honestly the game was really fun but my biggest issues were how the game handled the combat and frozen world was the most painful part of the entire franchise. Xehanort trying to be claiming he’s been good when he’s really just an awful leader. Honestly the final battle would’ve been much cooler if sora called xehanort out for being a horrible leader since xehanort had never once had anybody call him out on his real motives. The whole “oh he’s good now let’s forgive him.” Was super dumb and rushed.
Yeah, the Xehanort "twist" was a real slap to the face. Why can't we just melt the evil guys like we did to Ansem and Xemnas? I mean Xehanort literally destroys worlds with tons of people on them, it's like a murderer just saying "my B."
@@feedjompo it’s the fact he was doing all this shit with a smile on his face and everybody going “oh you’re such a meanie head xehanort.” And ignore the fact xehanort had some serious flaws on his plan and leadership. Xehanort who killed his true ally who wouldn’t hesitate to help his best friend could reflect on sora who has stuck with his friends to the very end.
They... didn't forgive him though? I didn't hear anything resembling an "It's Ok" from anyone except maybe Eraqus.
Also didn't Sora call him out on his bullshit in the same cutscene?
Of course his whole random exposition came out of nowhere but Sora and Co. did not forgive him.
@Litten-sb7eg it doesn’t change the fact it was stupid.
@@locodesert2 Yeah, the whole "Oh actually I was a good guy all along" was pretty dumb, though honestly other than that I liked the scene.
We deserved so much more than this flash in the pan
Not only was this video hilarious. But it perfectly said everything i felt since the day kh3 came out.
I got into the KH Saga last year even tho KH III was one of the games of all time, I'm pretty excited for IV, specifically for the whole Yozora thing going on at the end of ReMind.
It's true, KH3 was one of the games to be released, and definitely one of the games of 2019.
As flawed as this game is I’ll always enjoy it. The keyblade transformations are 100% one of my favorite gameplay mechanics ever. Funny thing is, on my first play through I was very mixed on this game, but having replayed it multiple times while carrying over my keyblades from the last save really changed the game for me.
It was so fun going through the game on critical with all the keyblade changes from the start. In my opinion it has the kind of variety I think was lacking from KH2 and KH1’s “Mash X to win” strats. Plus, starting a new game + allows you to get the Re:Mind abilities straight away which improves the entire game so much, even though it kinda breaks the pacing of how you change your move set throughout the game but that just never really bothered me.
Being a mega fan of the games, yes even birth by sleep (not ddd tho, fuck that game) its easy to call me “nostalgic” or “blind to a series that has long since died”. But my only genuine problem with the kh3 game design is that the original worlds were kinda meh compared to old titles exploration wise, whereas the Disney worlds are mega fun to explore and I find new and interesting details each and every time i replay the game.
I am also one of those crazy loons who obsesses over this garbage hill of a story, and I will say it’s mostly cause I like the characters and their relationship with the story more so than the actual story itself. Nomura is a complete idea man, meaning KH is usually filled with pretty awesome ideas, but the execution can fall flat if the right person isn’t helping him with the story. I feel the story up until DDD (God I hate that game) actually pulls together rather nicely and is pretty easily understandable if even kinda goofy. I see the story of kh3 as kind of a course correction of DDD. A lot of the time travel shit was thankfully very simplistic and easy to explain away with replicas and then the other members are just normal nobodies who chose to be that way again after their original demise in chain of memories and kh2.
I also actually do like the “floaty” combat. Fighting in the air always feels very cool and visually appealing to me, and you kinda overlooked airstep, where you can lock onto an enemy by holding down R1 and press square and you will be instantly teleported to them. That’s usually how you keep close combat with an enemy that gets launched or likes to teleport away. It completely changes the gameplay for me and makes it very zippy and fast paced, even more so than KH1 and KH2, where if an enemy flew away, it was a major pain in the ass to get over to them, especially in the early game. I remember the flying enemies of kh1 being especially annoying in this aspect.
I never had a huge problem with the bosses but I do agree with the sentiment that the organization fights were a bit too bare bones on the base game. An easy way to rectify this would have been for the organization to test Sora’s skills throughout his adventure, leading to more 1v1 fights within the Disney worlds, which would allow them to actually have a full set of moves and an actual boss fight instead of a big boss explosion at the end of the game.
Though I will say, as a super fan of the series, teaming up with the characters from the other games was such a fangasm moment for me and it kinda always will be lol. I accept being a Kingdom Hearts trash fan but hey, everyone has different tastes and I just like most things kh3 has done and I’m excited to see how they improve even more in kh4.
Yeah that's all fair. I actually dislike the keyblade forms for the reasons I listed in the video about the floaty combat. It felt to me like I was fighting for control too often. Attacks would lock me into a lengthy animation that I didn't really want to be in and enemies didn't know how to deal with the attacks now that they were generally larger or had different properties. To each his own, though. I have a preference for a quicker, snappier, to-the-point kind of attack in games in general.
New game plus is a good addition, but I can't say that having to beat the base game to get it to feel better is a proper solution. A progression towards getting better moves would have been better than getting the Re:Mind stuff all at once IMO. In other words, reworking what abilities you get at each level to sprinkle the good ones in over time. Though I would still argue that KH3 is easy to a fault and rarely motivated me to experiment with the combat since I could usually press triangle to win with whatever command I unlocked. This is unfortunately why I overlooked the airstep, I kept trying to intentionally weaken myself so the enemies could keep up, since just melting them constantly was getting dull. That's definitely a mistake on my part though, I should have considered airstepping like I did with the other movement options, but it just slipped my re:mind.
And I think we agree on the story, world design, and organization fights. I feel like the characters and setup were all there, but it just wasn't executed well. Like, what if instead of meeting up with everyone at the very end of the game, you had an organization member or two in each world, and one of the other light keyblade wielders met you at the world to help you investigate? Fighting alongside Axel in Big Hero 6 where he acts like he's too cool to be a real hero, or going through Arendelle with Riku while he gets all edgy about how he was once saved by friendship like Elsa needs to be. Like it's all there, and it pains me that it could have been better with some better writing. As much as I've fallen out of love with the plot, I also fanboy'd a bit over the characters getting their closure, and the team attacks in Re:Mind got me as well.
I appreciate you giving your 2 cents on it. I know everyone is different, but Kingdom Hearts is so split in terms of what people think it's hard for me to get a grasp of why one side thinks the way they do. I need people to disagree with me to keep my ego in check, so thanks for watching the video and giving me your thoughts.
@@feedjompo You’re so welcome! I actually appreciated your views in this video as you didn’t come off as holier than thou as a lot of reviewers tend to do. I thought this was good general critique of the game and I always like seeing other people’s perspective on things I like.
Yeah kh3 will always be the “untapped potential” game unfortunately. There’s so much stuff they could have done with the characters that they simply didn’t. The fact that all the FF characters had to be pushed aside because “the kh cast was getting too big” only to have most of the screen time go to Sora, Donald and Goofy feels like a smash in the face.
As much as I love this series, I will always acknowledge its faults. The game does in a way feel like a chore to play sometimes because you don’t feel like you’re actually doing anything until the anti Aqua segment.
I also friggin hate the need to overexplain everything in dialogue rather than character reactions or world design. A big example is when Sora sees the nobodies in kh2 for the first time. He looks at them weird, makes a really confused face, but doesn’t make a big deal out of it and just kills the enemy. In kh3 when the unversed show up, we get about 10 lines of dialogue about how they don’t look like heartless before we even fight them. It’s just not necessary and breaks the pacing a lot.
I think this is why so many fans are looking forward to kh4. In a way, it’s a new start with a new arc and it seems like some new characters will be introduced. Hopefully Nomura has learned some things from people’s complaints and will give characters other than Sora and Riku more importance/agency in the story.
As for the gameplay, it’s still in basically beta so I’ll hold my opinions for that. Super happy reaction commands are returning though.
I think it has to be played on critical unfortunately in order for you to need to utilise everything. The other modes even proud are way too easy, proud was super challenging in kh1 and bbs. I really had to play it on critical to find the cuisine useful. I used all of the things offered to me in critical and I think all modes should empower the player to use the things in their arsenal
@@gingergamer3270 Agree, critical mode is the way to go to appreciate or at least; get more out of the combat. My initial standard playthrough never really offered a sense of consequence to my lack of engagement with the systems and moves. But replaying on critical recently was much more fulfilling - if not sometimes tedious; but still rewarding to progress. Getting punished for my mistakes facilitates more disciplined combat situational awareness,. It's very satisfying to get in the flow dodgeing/blocking/attacking at the right moments and succesfully predicting,/ 'sensing' the oponements behaviour and movement.
I always like the story and exploration aspect of the series, kh3 being no exception but it seems (for better or worse) it took a bit of 'pain' to realise the potential in some of kh3s combat systems.
I would highly recommend attempting and pushing through critical if one is trying to get 'more' from the game.
@@gingergamer3270 You should also give Beginner All Pro Codes a try. Unlike Critical you have a fairly large health bar but very few options to recover HP during battle. It's either from destructible objects, the HP walker ability or a chance at HP recovery when you cast spells with the Chef keyblade. You actually have to engage with regular enemies and learn how they work since damage should be avoided at all costs and you can't overwhelm them with attractions, links or keyblade transforms.
I was able to beat the whole of KHIII and Remind like this. I'm also doing Critical Level 1 All Pro Codes, but even though I was able to beat Angelic Amber I might have to give up either the Pro Codes or Exp Zero.
My views on KH3 can be summed up thusly: It had many problems in both the gameplay and story, but also held at least some promise for the future, especially in what's been said so far for KH4.
Something to remember on the story, for instance, is that Nomura was far from at his best at that time. His storytelling is already one of those "you either really love it or you hate it" types, with little to no middle ground for most people, and I'm one of those who usually falls into the "love it" category. However, between everything that occurred regarding Versus 13 and FF15 (plus, IIRC, he wanted to hold off on KH3, though don't quote me on that), it's not really that surprising that KH3 had more than a few issues story-wise.
I'm not currently in a good position to make a more detailed summary, so to finish up: KH3 had many problems, but also some good points, and what's currently available regarding KH4 makes me feel confident that if nothing else, it'll be significantly better than 3, even if it doesn't quite return to the heights of 2 or 1.
Also while the movement does seems to retain that locked feel you mentioned, it's also worth remembering that's not uncommon for trailers, especially this early into the hype cycle, and it's entirely plausible that'll be gone come the full release, so personally I'm gonna hold off on judging that either way until later in the cycle.
I've very rarely see a game change drastically from early release trailers... other than in a negative direction that is. There's likely not enough development time left for them to fix the locking seen in the trailer, if they even see the locking as an issue in the first place (which I'm highly doubtful of). Personally I've found it wise to not hold my breath when a trailer comes out. What you see is usually the game at its absolute best, which means it literally can only get worse from there.
Storytelling wise, I've read, watched and experienced enough stories that the one told through Kingdom Hearts isn't particularly stand out in my opinion. It's a convoluted mess at worst and a decent Hero's Journey at best. As you've said, both gameplay and story have good points and bad points. But overall KH has been mostly bad points from my experience. Which is a crying shame because some of the most visually and emotionally impactful things for me have come from this series. I just hope Kingdom Hearts can find its feet again and make build a powerful experience once more. But if it can't, well there's more fish in the sea. No need to bludgeon the poor series with ill-directed ire, only thing left after is to move on and leave it to the faithful few fans out there who still can glean some form of enjoyment from the series still.
What do you think the future holds for Kingdom Hearts 4? What's kept your interest so far? I'm hoping for an event that subverts conventions in some manner.
To me the story in three seemed more half cocked than in previous installments and the attractions dynamic felt more like advertisements for Disneyland that was tasteless.
wasn't a huge fan of 3 but im excited for 4 because it feels like the series can have a sort of "soft reboot". kh3 was weighed down heavily by so much external stuff that it struggled to hold any identity of its own. I feel 4 won't struggle nearly as much in that way and will be able to take the series in a new and interesting direction
I wish I could be as optimistic as you.
I'm more pessimistic about this. I would even go so far as to say that (when it comes to external things), you ain't seein' nothin' yet.
One, most of the story materials for KH4 are from mobile games. Most KH fans do not (want to) play mobile games. So, the story will get even more confusing (or silly).
Two, Nomura clearly hasn't moved on from the Final Fantasy Versus XIII "betrayal", judging from KH3 and Re:Mind content. Kingdom Hearts 4 will most likely be his Final Fantasy Versus XIII, making the game lose even more of its identity.
I think it'll still be weighed down, just with the mobile games
One thing I was absolutely salty about KH3 comabt was its Guard. I don't know if I'm the only one feeling it, but I swear sometimes enemies, especially ones with big swinging motions, just completely went over the guard hitbox or whatever, and instead managed to reach Sora from behind. I can't say if that's even a real thing that was happening, but in my experience, KH3 Guard is somehow less reliable than previous titles'. I would legit trade the ability to use it mid-air for that stable feel it gave me when used in the past games. idk.
KH2 was the last good kingdom hearts gameplay wise.
BBS was limited due to its hardware I assume so combat felt relatively sophisticated on the ground while really, *really* lacking in aircombat mobility
DDD...I don't like talking about it. playing as Riku was fun, the timer between characters sucked major donkey balls. also that was the introduction of flow motion and I personally hate it.
I can get to locations was quicker and way more comfortable in Kingdom Hearts 2 with the upgraded glide ability. air mobility was alright I guess, I really don't remember much about the game aside from the fact that I did not like it.
KH3...ooh boy KH3...yes, you feel floaty. that's it. you can stay in the air indefinitely. there's no feeling of weight behind your hits like there was with KH2's combo finishers.
yes KH3 has some nice options but it's just not living up to it's previous iteration.
also drive forms are gone. yeah people like the new keyblade forms. I didn't. I didn't like half their designs as per usual, so half these special forms I haven't even used.
I used oathkeeper, oblivion and ultima once I got it.
so I have 3 less forms to choose from each fight if we consider KH2FM had Valor Form, Wisdom Form, Master Form, Final Form, Antiform and the classic form of which I forgot the name.
on top of that there's not as much mobility in KH3. yes you can use flowmotion almost anywhere but it's only possible in certain spots. I could use the quadrouple jump from master form *anywhere*
Taking out the drive forms was a *massive* L for me.
Combat doesn't have a weighty feel. Magic is good and looks way better than in previous games. Which isn't hard if the previous main line entry was 14 years ago. But the magic was okay, gotta give 'em that.
Story was downright cringy for me and I don't know why. Maybe I've outgrown Kingdom Hearts at this point in my life. But all the Dialogue especially with non disney characters like Kairi, Axel, Sora, Riku was sending shivers down my spine. Not the good kind either. And Xemnas and Co. were just so extra edgy as well as Yozora...I dunno man, it's far from what I hoped for and Characters like Ansem are just thrown away. The guy I've been fighting with for 2 decades now. Has like 3 final lines where he actually talks to us, reveals he isn't that much of a bad guy, refuses to elaborate and dies.
This game has been a through and through 3/10 for me despite everything it tried to do and to add...nah man. Not even an Arena or something. Olympus while having a larger world than KH2 has 0 Arenas. Nothing to test your medal.
"You get a run of the mill Invictus from KH1 with a bit more fashion and a second sword. That's it. No sephiroth either, we don't want final fantasy characters after I didn't get to write my noctis the way I wanted him to be! I'll compensate by making the entire bad cast overly edgy in kingdom hearts! yeah that's a good plan!"
That plus I am expected to have played random ahh ahh mobile titles from japan to understand the story? Naah Nomura. You fckd up. I think I'm done with the franchise. Which is sad, because as a kid, I swore to myself I'd always stay updated when it comes to the franchise, no matter what happens. Oh well.
KH2 Final Mix is no doubt apex KH gameplay/content.
Hey great video! I honestly appreciate how much the focus was on everything other than just the story because oof, every point you made was completely relevant but generally ignored by other people to focus on the story itself. And for me personally, the only thing that kept me going through the game when I first played it was nostalgia. I loved seeing all the characters I literally grew up seeing have what I expected to be one last adventure to resolve everything. Like I genuinely got emotional seeing the opening song because I kept thinking "oh my god this is happening, after like 17 years of buildup". It was only a few days after finishing it when I really thought about the game, and realized "wait that kinda sucked" lol. I'm honestly hopeful for 4, but extremely wary about it.
The thing was you clearly missed i terviews. Nomura sayed since 2007 kh 3 would Not be the end of Soras Story.
Its like a Anime series witj multiple story arcs.
He also Plans to devolep Soras character. He curently has insecuretys.
Kh 4 will add a new writer to help make character Motivation clearer
Ur gonna buy it too don’t pretend
Its actually amazing having you detail all these issues. You are much more technical and in depth than me and I find myself nodding on pretty much every point you make. All I know is I liked 1 and I loved 2, but I ALSO couldn't get through 3. I know I'm going to have to get though it for 4, but I still kind of dread it.
Edit: Wrote my comment RIGHT before your slideshow outro. I had to edit it just so I can lol.
One of the TH-camrs I like, and who is far better than me, did the same thing to me once when it came to Dark Souls II. Matthewmatosis gave me words to put to my feelings and I respected him a lot for that. I'm glad I could give some of the same feeling back to someone else.
Usually the problem is the love for KH2 and people being like "EW THIS ISN'T THE GAME FROM 2005!" when it's extremely unfair to compare them due to being wildly different climates of the gaming sphere.
@@blastortoise It's more so that's it's wildly different teams. The team currently designing the games used to be the "B Team". "A Team" designed the first 2 Kingdom Hearts as well as the version of Chain of Memories on the GBA. B Team was first tasked with porting COM to other platforms in 3D, rebranding it as RE:COM. However, due to certain Square Enix Events, A Team was re-assigned to other projects and B Team was tasked with taking over the series. Quite a tall order for a team that was just supposed to port games and not create them. B Team's first own game was Birth By Sleep where the issues of floaty-ness, lacking gameplay and other gameplay issues started.
Over time this team has honed their game design skills and iterated on their own take of the Kingdom Hearts combat system. Kingdom Hearts 3 is the culmination of what they have learned put into practice. They've come so very far from where they started in BBS, but the issues spring from the fundamentals of their game design. Their combat isn't snappy, heavy and lacks the momentum that the first two games had. It is objectively bad and these are legitimate issues for an action game. But it's the design feel this team likes and is running with. I'm glad to see the improvements, but they'd have to un-learn everything from that past decade and start all over to make the games have tighter gameplay design. It's just not something you can just learn overnight, or something where you make a few tweaks to an existing system to fix. And that's because it has to start in the mind of the designer, not in the programming or animations.
But I think it's fair to critique KH3 and it's gameplay. In fact, having been over 15 years the game should play better, not worse than its predecessors. The "new" team has had more than enough time to learn from their mistakes and make the gameplay snappy, weighty and critical. But instead they've emphasized style over substance. It's more important to them for the game to be flashy than functional as a game.
I'm sorry, but people play games to PLAY them, not to WATCH them. We watch movies, we play games. And if the gameplay isn't engaging and fun, then it's not worth our time. What frustrates people is they WANT Kingdom Hearts to be good. I WANT Kingdom Hearts to be good. But the designers also have to want it, or it's just not going to happen. So we complain in hopes that it motivates the designers to put a little more elbow grease into giving the mechanics more polish. At this point, what else can you do? It's not like the community has the permission to design their own Kingdom Hearts game. If we could, I'm sure collectively we'd come up with something infinitely better, but we can't, so all we can do is sit here and express our disappointment with this colossal pile of dog shit square enix so inelegantly placed on our doorstep.
@@asthmeresivolisk3129 Yet my point still stands, and no it hasn't been 15 years in the making, it's been 7. If you want to be stupid and not count the other games (which is only stupid because you NEED to count those games to get the plot of 3) then yes it's around 14-15 years.
"It'S oBjEcTiVeLy BaD" no it's not, it felt about the same as KH2 but slightly slower, which isn't a bad thing it just takes getting used to, and clearly people suck the dick of 2 far too much considering its one of the worst KH games just because the gameplay is enjoyable? Ignore story, ignore world design, ignore side mechanics, ignore graphics, gameplay only, which makes your entire rant here:
"I'm sorry, but people play games to PLAY them, not to WATCH them. We watch movies, we play games. And if the gameplay isn't engaging and fun, then it's not worth our time. What frustrates people is they WANT Kingdom Hearts to be good. I WANT Kingdom Hearts to be good. But the designers also have to want it, or it's just not going to happen. So we complain in hopes that it motivates the designers to put a little more elbow grease into giving the mechanics more polish. At this point, what else can you do?"
Stupid statement, first it shows a lack of knowledge or care for game design and its difficulty, especially 3D games that are freeroam, and secondly this is a JRPG, not Call of duty where a statement like that would apply, the reason these games thrive is EXACTLY because of the mix of watching and playing, which KH3 gives in a good balance. Would Chrono trigger be as good as it is if it had less story to watch? No, and that applies to every single popular JRPG/RPG/SRPG, so it's really stupid to say that.
Boy KH3 for me turned out to be the last straw that broke my faith in SE. Refuse to buy their games blindly now and instead wait on reviews and watch let's plays to decide. I know FF 16 didn't have Nomura but it was such a huge disappointment. SE just can't seem to tell an engaging story anymore in their major games.
I actually like that Sora has the ability to hang in the air during combos, and a little bit after. It sets him apart from other action rpg protagonists. There is some dead air after an air combo finishes, but you can mitigate that by shotlock-flow onto another enemy and starting another combo. If the game incentivized being in the air more, like if you got some kind of xp multiplier for each enemy defeated without touching the ground, it could be a strength instead of a weakness.
As someone with zero nostalgia (expect for vague memories of birth by sleep) I really liked kingdom hearts 3, the floaty gameplay felt fun to me and even though the story of kingdom hearts is a little confusing I truly love the game series. I understand how someone could dislike the game, but here's my perspective.
Gravity: Being in the air all the time didn't bother me because of flow motion, cool air combos, shotlocks and magic.
Attractions: Some were fun at first and I loved that sora was having so much fun whilst slaughtering hordes of heartless, but this was the point I agreed with you the most on. Attractions felt out of place and kind of over powered even though everything was powerful.
The Original Worlds: Revisiting twilight town was perfectly fine considering KH3 is the end of the Xehanort saga and it was a location very important to the overall story. They could of changed some stuff for gameplay reasons, but it wouldn't have made much sense story wise. I really liked the keyblade graveyard because I'm a huge birth by sleep fan. The labyrinth area of the graveyard felt really fun and I loved the characters they picked to fight each other. Scala ad Caelum was really fun to explore and I wish it was bigger. It was an amazing final boss arena especially to show Xehanort's power. I'm sure it makes more sense as a world once you learn the story of dark road (Idk though, I never played it and I have very little understanding of dark road's story.)
The Enemies: KH3 enemies were less memorable because you can just nuke them with magic pretty easily, but the unique gimmicks of each heartless really shine when playing on the critical difficulty. Critical mode makes the gameplay so much better and fixes most of the issues I had with sora being way too powerful.
And finally the future: I loved playing through the full series (minus the mobile games) and I'm extremely excited for KH4. Sora being in the real world doesn't feel "stupid and tacky" to me, and I hope they do it right because the non-disney part of the story has always been my favorite. Even if KH4 is awful Kingdom Hearts will always hold a place in my heart.
Side note: A very well made video, and I hope to see more content from you in the future.
I like some aspects of KH3. I played it with mods that fixed some gameplay issues. And that helped my enjoyment. However...
- I missed reaction commands.
- I wanted a few more words to explore (at least 2).
- Some of the worlds could have been designed better (mostly Frozen).
- The story could have been paced better.
- The climax was cool, yet felt unearned.
If I ever get a chance. I want to create a series of video essays detailing what I would change as a game designer.
- Also the remind DLC should have been in the game from the beginning.
- And cut out the repetitive cutscenes and fights.
"Did we rush through 3 so that Nomura could get a second chance at Versus?"
....Look, I know I'm not the biggest fan of KHIII -- I really did not like it. And honestly...that question is a big part of why. It really did feel like he just...didn't care about it anymore. And seeing as to how Sora clearly looks like Noctis as well now...
The parts where you lowkey appreciating Sora’s Feet with memes in the KH4 Trailers had me rolling! I won’t judge personally want Naminè’s Feet, heck she always has them out and they’re just asking to be worshipped, I’m surprised you didn’t show them during that ending slideshow of this video.
The end slideshow was made with the in-game gummiphone, so editing in feet that weren't available in game would be dishonest, and I would never lie.
Also I'm not really a foot guy, I just thought it was funny. But I won't judge you either.
@@feedjompo Ironically simping for feet is a gateway drug to actually simping for feet. Trust me on that.
Broooo. I forced myself through the final half of the game and getting pissed at the spacey dialogue (it felt like 2 second spaces all the time) and the super floaty combat. And why did sora become a complete child? Crying and whimpering like he didn't face the death of the universe twice. I loved these characters and this felt like bad fan fiction. Threw away my copy when I was done, never bought the dlc, threw out the poster I got for preordering the game. But you sir earned a subscriber today. Excellent video
Great video man! Another problem I had with the game were the summons. In kh1 and 2 the summons were ACTUALLY there fighting with you and had their own unique move sets. In kh3 they made the summons into elementals and it made me feel like I wasnt actually fighting with them
Summons were almost the same thing as attractions in 3, unfortunately. I do wish 2 actually explained the depth of the summons though, like how if you don't use Stitch's reaction command he licks your health bar and MP bar to fill it back up.
@@feedjompo No wonder this video felt so off right from the get go in the first section about physics. For all of the confidence and zeal with which you put forward your points, there's a distinct lack of basic factual accuracy (and a total lack of consideration for actual differing viewpoints; your capacity for strawmanning the opposing side of the argument reminds me of Geoff Thew and bl00dybizkitz) where it matters.
Stitch doesn't restore your HP bar when he licks you with his tongue, that only restores your MP bar. Stich automatically restores your HP over time tick by tick at a very slow rate for a very very small amount of HP per tick, and he also provides HP orbs for the player when they use either one of the attacks in his Limit Command or when he uses his ukulele of his own accord while out on the field when the player is at low enough HP (assuming you're not in the Colosseum). If you can't even get something like this right in a comment format where you can easily correct any mistakes you make, then why should I trust what you have to say in the video? I'll finish the video anyway, but you're not off to a great start, even in just the video's first major section by itself.
@@boyishdude1234 Gonna be real, I thought he only licked the MP gauge, but double checked myself against the wiki: "If the HP or MP bar is low, Stitch fully restores it by licking the gauge." Here's what I looked at: www.khwiki.com/Stitch#Kingdom_Hearts_II_2
It's a bummer because I knew how it was, but then sourced wrong info. Shoulda learned from the Dark Souls wiki that sometimes people post wrong stuff, and should have referenced a video instead, but good catch on your end.
@@feedjompo Yeah... I've been with low HP using Stitch before and that's never happened to me once.
Wikis are a double-edged sword. When they're accurate they can be an extremely convenient tool, but when they're not they typically leave you with more questions than answers. Have you read the Fextra wiki page for Greirat's questline in Dark Souls 3? It's perfectly not confusing, I assure you.
@@boyishdude1234 Lol, I'm pretty sure I used that exact page on Greirat, got confused, and had him die in one of my playthroughs.
By the way, in your other comment you mentioned things like me strawmanning or just being wrong in the video, and I legitimately wouldn't mind you explaining. It was my first attempt at making a review, so if I did actually overlook things or misrepresent people, then I can try to patch it up for next time. So far most comments that are disagreeing with me are about whether the game was good or not, but if it comes down to my scripting and structure that's something I would really like to hear about. I'm sort of starved for that type of feedback. Other feedback, like if I got an actual fact wrong, would also be good to hear (like if my frame counts were inaccurate, or if I said you can get a skill in 1 or 2 at the wrong spot, or something along those lines).
I definitely went full smug in the first chunk, which I think is funny but probably not the best way to start when trying to be taken seriously. For future reviews I'm planning on reeling that back, shooting for comedy but not to the extent that it would alienate people who disagree immediately. But I was pretty confident in the later sections (at least in regards to it representing my perspective) being well articulated and thought out. And don't worry, my smug aura isn't carried into the comments, so I'm not trying to bait you so I can start a big argument or something.
Tbh the pardon for 3 comes from there clearly being a really big issue on Nomura's part for figuring out how to finish the story threads for so many characters. Smaller scopes with a less bloated cast he is typically better with, which is what gives hope for 4. Sora and main co + Foretellers is by itself a smaller scope than KH2 cast, which should give a lot more room to breathe with each character that he does generally better with.
Thank you for this. The gravity in KH3 wasn’t an issue for me until the ReMind DLC dropped with the Data Fights. I hated fighting those fights initially because I noticed that whenever I finished a combo, the bosses falls like bricks while Sora is still in the air. And some of the fights, being in the air is basically a death sentence because they have speed of a bullet train while Sora recovery in the air is the slower than when he’s on the ground (looking at you Saix).
If Sora had a Keyblade move that is basically Helm Breaker from DMC to get to the ground faster, I would’ve enjoyed my time more.
Makes you wish the falling slash ability functioned like helm breaker.
I hundred percented KH3 and thought it wasn’t as bad as everyone said but there were a lot of cutscenes and flaws that made me wish it was a little better and more fleshed out story.
Love people who can appreciate something but also recognize its flaws.
Honestly I beat 3 and didn’t feel much of anything upon beating it. After some time and coming back for remind I realized how much this game either made me feel indifferent or hate my time playing due to quite a few aspects you mentioned including MANY of the story stuff.
The only reason I’m hopeful that 4 can be better is that the Xehanort arc is over apparently and we got potentially a new slate to build upon. With the teaser from remind with Yazora it made me feel like things could be potentially a bit more serious or something. The teaser trailer for 4 feeling a bit more serious and sora being in a real life place intrigues me but idk how I fully feel yet since I’d need to see how he interacts with the world more I guess. Finally I’d say since they got over the many problems 3 development had they’ll be better off this time around and potentially have less development hell causing issues.
I wouldn’t say that last part is the only reason for why 3 has many design issues that were a problem but definitely a large part I think.
It's hard for me to look at the disrespect 3 got development and story-wise and be hopeful for 4 at the same time. If it's great, that's great, but to some extent the way 3 was waved away for a totally new story puts a bad taste in my mouth.
My only concern with 4 is that I don't really care about any of the apprentices story
I always really struggled with liking KH3. I think for many of us, it was a game that was SUPPOSE to be a return to everything that was fun about the numbered titled games like KH1 & KH2. Instead, it carried the weight of BBS & DDD just with prettier graphics and a "let's wrap this up" type of conclusion thrown together. I always knew KH2 was my favorite game of all time, but I always HOPED that when KH3 came out, it would overtake that spot. I should've known that after the floatier combat of the handheld titles, as well as the "stupidity" trait that was added to sora in DDD, it would just be a continuation of that. The team made an attempt at rectifying this "floaty gameplay" by adding some additional abilities that existed in previous titles, but the entirety of KH3 was designed with floating in mind. A large majority of enemies are flying and get knocked back so far. Sora's movement has to be linear in order to keep up with them. I always hate saying "Just make it more like KH2", but in all honesty, it's true. KH2, in terms of combat, is still unmatched in the entire series. I genuinely think if they made the enemy juggle closer to sora, with the faster hitting combos and more gravity-induced finishers and added more on top, it would've been far less hated on. I have plenty more to say about KH3, from the phoned in line delivery, to the fact that the frozen Disney world was just the movie with Sora & the gang awkwardly in the background. Nevertheless, I'll continue to get my hopes up for KH4, as much like a toxic relationship, I'll keep hoping it'll somehow give me what I'm looking for.
I played it thinking I'd finally get some closure, but it still left a bitter taste in my mouth and left me with more questions than it answered. I'll prolly play other future parts just so I could try and find answers
May as well just read a wiki at that point.
@Feed Jompo Or actually play Kingdom Hearts 3 WITHOUT the nostalgia blindness like you and several others have unfortunately expressed with low tier videos like this.
KH3 is peak Kingdom Hearts, both game play wise and plot wise. Provided you actually pay even the slightest bit of attention to the quality of the combat, plot, characters and other parts of the structure.
@@goldenheart9503You are one of those fans
The funny thing about Nomura is that if you really dive into it. Kingdom Hearts wasn't even his baby. There were OG FF guys that literally had major input into making KH1 so good. Obviously the moment those guys left Square, well. Everything went downhill.
The Disney worlds in this game weren’t really filler per se. They were just used differently in this game than in the past ones. While we spend the game going through them looking for the power of waking, what Sora is actually seeing is various examples of love in all its forms, and the sacrifices those that love are willing to make. The Disney worlds were meant to be a more thematic connection to the main story than a plot centric one. After Sora gets done traveling to these worlds, his feelings for Kairi progress from childhood crush to genuine romantic love. The connecting theme of love and sacrifice in the Disney worlds were meant to foreshadow Sora ultimately caring so much for Kairi in particular that he is willing to sacrifice his very existence to bring her back to life. I think the reason so many people don’t catch this is because this theme doesn’t get the chance to really stand on its own. We don’t get enough scenes with Sora and Kairi to establish that their relationship has really changed. Yes, they finally ate the paupu, but that’s about it. Also, the scene where Sora finally comes to this realization (the scene right after he saves everyone and he and Kairi turn back time, where Sora has the flashbacks to the Disney worlds) kind of got lost in the chaos of everything else that got squeezed into the last 3 hours of the game. I’m not saying that KH3 was perfect by any means, just that the argument that the Disney worlds were filler and nothing more isn’t necessarily true, you just had to look at them from another angle.
You're the second person to bring up that I said the Disney worlds were filler, but I don't think I actually said that. Correct me if I'm wrong though, I'll clarify here. Maybe I didn't phrase it well enough, though I did check the script.
I brought up filler 2 times in reference to 1) the combat and 2) the box.
For combat, the idea was that the enemies themselves were the filler. And while the worlds had their cutscenes, the majority of playtime would be fighting enemies. I referred to them as filler in the sense that they were there to extend the game's play time and nothing more, since they were otherwise completely unengaging. Obviously an action game needs combat, but due to its simplicity, it became almost irrelevant.
For the box, the point of the Caribbean level was to show the romantic love between Elizabeth and Will. However, Luxord was just there to find the box, yells about the box a lot, and nothing comes of it. This makes it feel like filler, in the same way that filler in an anime is a topic that is brought up and never referenced again. Maleficent and Pete looking for it also has no pay off. I'm sure it'll matter later, but vague teasing for something that gets no extra information to the player feels rough, since the box could've been left out of the game entirely (except that last cutscene) and nothing would have changed.
I did pick up on the themes of love, but I didn't want to talk about story in this really. However, if we're really talking about it, with how most of the worlds are paced, it can certainly feel like filler. I don't think the themes justify the playtime of these places, but I would be a liar if I said the themes weren't there.
Anyway, just wanted to clarify. Let me know if I did say something more directly about the worlds being filler and I'm just forgetting that I did.
@@feedjompo I’m sorry, I think I was the one that was unclear. My comment was less about your video and more defending the view point that the Disney worlds in 3 matter. The idea of them being “filler” that don’t matter in the grand narrative is a common complaint you see flung out by those looking for a simple and clean (see what I did there) thing to pick on. But I can’t say in fairness that it’s the fault of the players if they feel that way because, like I said in the original post, the failure to properly convey that is in the game, not the player base.
@@drm726 Ah, gotcha. It was more of a general response to criticism, not necessarily directed at me. In that case, yeah I see where you're coming from. It did take my second playthrough to notice what they were going for, and Kairi needed some more time, even if it was just another cutscene. Sora and Kairi's relationship grew, but it's almost like it happened off screen. Spending more time with all the characters would have definitely made the time feel more worth it, even if the interactions were superficial.
Glad we agree here. People hand wave the story a lot in these games, and while I think the quality fluctuates, I think it's too much to actually say it's actually nothing. Though I might say that as hyperbole sometimes.
Sounds like the theme was half-baked, so it makes sense people would miss it.
And I'd rather Sora actually spend time with the people he loves
One thing I find strange is that I remember only one entirely unique situation command circumstance in KH3. For Goofy's, where you launch up and throw him down, I'd you do it while targeting the tall sand pillar heartless, it swallows Goofy and gets killed instantly. I was always disappointed that there weren't more interactions like this.
Very well made video. Hope you review more games or talk about kh4
I'm planning on experimenting a bit to find my voice, but plan on returning to video games after a few uploads. So stay tuned.
i dont think sora's movement has to be realistic; just not floaty/unresponsive so you can keep playing faster. like if he fell faster and that improved gameplay that'd be ok. or if constantly being on the air allowed him to combo better that'd be good too.
Kh2 is my favorite, I still don't remember why I like it so much, I just did. Kh1 for me at least was great, it gives me nostalgia from playing the first game when I was younger, but sometimes there were the little things, platforming could be a pain, you move slowly and I had to keep restarting the race against Riku because I fell or got caught on something. Playing kh1 again on final mix is way too easy, the story is great, the music just hits right. In kh2 the music video cinematic scene is amazing. The gummi ships were fun in kh2 compared to being just annoying in kh1. There might be more but I'm still replaying the games. I remember re chain of memories that the card attack system was not my favorite thing, perhaps replaying it will grow on me, the boss fights were done well and interesting.
I like using reaction commands in kh2.
You had to think on your feet because there were so many ways to fight. The game punishes you for just spamming and hitting without a plan.
In a few words kh2 was simple, clean, a great challange and just fun.
KH2 was the whole package. Story was pretty good for KH, mechanics were 11/10, and had great set-piece moments.
Exactly right. The game just feels half baked. Soras moveset doesn’t really have a lot of synergy with the enemies and isn’t fun to experiment with. The lack of original worlds just seems like we’re purposely leaving out a part of KH. The story is just slapped together. The world design is uninspired. I kinda just think Nomura wanted to get this over with so he could do KH vs 13.
Masterpiece of a video. You are underrated.
Thank you stranger.
Watch the Kingdom Hearts 3 video by Nerd Odyssey. THAT is a masterpiece of a video and superior to this one, in every single way.
i'll never understand why they halved the gravity after KH2.
2 and 1 really are the only games that feel good in that way.
if they were so dead set on having it be floaty then it needed a lot more combo modifiers to give you better control over your height, and they could've even given you a fast fall movement option like fighting games often do.
i haven't yet experimented with gravity mods for pc but i look forward to trying that and seeing how it feels.
in general i felt a lack of satisfying animations and movement in this game, like the way glide has no momentum to it, how painfully slow some of the early modifiers are and how many recovery frames they have, how pace breaking and awful some of the keyblade transformation finishes are like the Shield or Flag ones etc.
hope 4 will be a step up from it, Re:Mind was a good sign atleast
THE SLIDESHOW AT THE END 😂😂😂
Zeus really brings the heat ya feel me
FINALLY… I cackled at the slideshow
I have hope for KH4 because Re:Mind really showed that it clicked for the team how to make the gameplay of KH3 challenging and interesting along with options to cut down on mid-combat cutscenes and flat out removing attractions (which means they took the feedback about them being annoying and too long to heart). Assuming 4 uses the same engine and gameplay I’m hoping they use that same understanding when developing the entire game to make something more difficult and interesting to play that uses all the mechanics like Re:Mind did.
If they focus on cleaning up the normal combat and reduce how much they use in-game weapon cutscenes I could see it being a somewhat fun romp. Still probably won't be for me though.
I’m not overly hopeful for 4 story wise, but gameplay wise I’m sure it could match 2. Really rubbed me wrong that Nomura rushed past so many character interactions in 3. He was surprised people were more excited about dark aqua than the new worlds. He seems kinda detached from how things were back before dream drop. The series felt more alive when the cast expanded, now it’s back to Sora solves all issues. I hope they don’t abandon the rest of the cast in 4. I’d actually like to play as Roxas and others looking for Sora
I'm in the same boat as Nomura with this one tbh. Why do people like these characters? They're not well written at all, they're bland and rather unconvincing for the most part. But more over I think, as a creator, there are 2 main reasons he doesn't view these characters the same way the fans would.
1. Nomura is an innovator, and idea man and a visionary. he LOVES coming up with badass ideas and interesting new concepts. But he's not so great at sticking to them and fully developing those ideas to their fullest potential. Once He's gotten a fair ways in to a new idea, he comes up with another one and becomes disinterested in the last idea and just drops it. The characters in Kingdom Hearts are like individual ideas he's had, but once the game they came from is done with, he's mentally done with them and has no interest in going back and fleshing them out anymore. this ties into...
2. Nomura is probably tired of working on Kingdom Hearts. Again, he likes new ideas, and being forced to come back to the same franchise over and over again is probably wearing out his creativity. He's got all these cool ideas he wants to try out (whether they're good or not) and the only place he can shoehorn them into is Kingdom Hearts. Which is probably why the plot is so convoluted and poorly assembled at this point. But unless it's a main character he has a strong feel for who has actual development plans in place, he's probably not interested in seeing the other characters through. He's got burn out on them, so from his point of view the other side characters are just tiresome to look at, so he figures it's the same for the fans. Just dead weight he has to carry from game to game to begrudgingly appease the fanbase.
These are the reasons I ultimately think Nomura feels this way. I can't exactly speak for the man, but following the patterns of what he's said in the past and his own actions and direction, this much can be roughly gleaned. Personally the only side character I like is Luxord, but it's mostly because they haven't fleshed him out with nonsense and his past is a mystery. As soon as they spotlight him, I'm 100% sure they'll ruin him for me. But alas, what's a lad to do?
Damn. I'm super proud of the editing in my own Kh vid, but this proves the competition is tight. Great watch, your passion is super evident in the writing and line delivery.
Passion? You call this "passion"? Guess your definition of that word is different from the actual meaning.
Wow this is a fantastic video and it highlights a lot of my grievances with KH3 fairly well. I wouldn't say I hate KH3, but I think it might be one of the single most disappointing games I have ever played. I am, or perhaps were might be a better descriptor as of now, a huge fan of the series. I love nearly every game and found myself engrossed in the bizarre story and character drama. These sorts of stories with off the wall twists and out right nonsensical universal mechanics are definitely not for everyone, but for me it scratched an itch and I eagerly looked forward to how I foolishly assumed Kingdom Hearts 3 would tie it all together in a neat little bow. I was an idiot and a clown for thinking so, obviously, but to someone chest deep in a pool made of Hope for a proper end to this long and epic series, I simply could not see such a thing.
To make it clear, my biggest point of despair for KH3 was chiefly on the story, or how I should say that there barely was any. In previous entries each world served a purpose in the narrative to steadily feed you little nuggets of plot/story information as you go along. Sure the actual happenings in that world might not amount to much but you still generally feel like you gained something important from the venture, such as hints of what evil plot the villains are up to or bits of character growth for the cast, which ultimately helps feed into the big climactic reveals and story moments near the end.
KH3 had next to none of that. We knew since before the game came out that Xehanort was going to mess around with Kingdom Hearts (the in game thing not the series) and there would be some big fancy showdown at the Keyblade Graveyard. Not only that we also knew there was a chance of many fan favorite characters returning, so the great big final showdown felt hollow and more like just going through the motions. What new story elements we did get that may have been interesting were perhaps far worse than this, as they were all nothing more than droplets of a much broader story that was not even in the mainline KH games, but in fact shoved away in a pay to win mobile game. This was the straw that broke the camels back for me.
Want to find out the secret past of the Kingdom Hearts world? Well you don't find out in the much hyped "final" entry of the series, but in a mobile game! Want to find out the backstory of Xehanort and learn why he was the big bad for the whole series? Play a mobile game :D! This meant that if you were someone like myself that loved KH not for its gameplay but the story then you payed 60 bucks (or more) for a glorified advertisement for an entirely different game. And the worst part of it all is that now the plot has been so stretched out and convoluted that it barely feels like the main series entries even mean anything from a story perspective. Who gives a crud what Sora is up to now if anything remotely interesting in KH doesn't even happen a thousand miles away from him? I'm done.
Much like you mentioned in your video, I too will be treating anything with the name Nomura attached to it as if it had "WARNING - PLAGUE - DO NOT OPEN" written on it. Bah!
Your mistake was ignoring nomura saying kh 3 isnt the end of the Story uustcthe xehanort Saga.
I think i see alot of hate forbthe game come from this misconception. People who knew what the game Was aculy likèd it as ther went in only expecting the end of xehanort as the Main villain
@@indedgames4359 I loved the story. And as a fan, I will watch endless videos to get caught up on the phone games. I get the pain of a good chunk of lore being hidden behind a phone game. But honestly Nomura is a really good writer. People who say Disney worlds have no meaning can't read subtext worth a damn, and kh3 was designed to be purposely misleading and played multiple times to understand the story. Remind adds so much more, and people still don't get it. I'm waiting for them to all get ten times as mad when all the subtext becomes text because it's not going to be what they expect and will come out of nowhere in their minds, disrupting the story and reconning and all the other excuses people have had to hate on the story.
The summary for me is, I expected some quantity of new stuff from a numbered game, but got less new stuff from it than the other less ambitious games of the series. Story and gameplay-wise in particular.
This really hit me one specific time when Larxene appeared in Frozen world just to annoy me by creating an ice labyrinth. I was really underwhelmed seeing all these organization members again with no intrigue aside from being Xehanort's underlings.
Hotdayum, I was just recommended this and man, great stuff. This is all stuff I have been saying but in a more comedic yet straightforward way. I still like 3 and think its fun, but I also think its one of the worst in terms of difficulty, world choice, characters and whatnot. The interactions are good, in fact, I think its on par with 1 with things like the Rock Em Sock Em Robots in the Toy Box and the underwater chests in Port Royal. I also think the level design is really neat, and the combat is still fun imo. However, the way the game holds your hand is insane and is pretty lame about it. I've beaten every game (besides Re:CoM of course) at level 1 Proud/Crit and omg is 3 just sooooo much easier than the others.
Edit: love the music choices btw :) Ratchet and Clank is the most fun series to me and Tekken 4, SM64, Blazblue and KoF are always great to hear
KH3 has its positives, but since this was a "why it's bad" video I only focused on the bad. I actually had the world layouts listed as a topic to put in this video, but after replaying it for the video I realized that it was actually quite enjoyable and left it out. KH3 is on the brink of being actually good from my perspective, but they just haven't quite gotten there IMO. And if there's one thing they aren't lacking in 3, its gameplay options. I do have to respect how many things you can do, even if I personally dislike the quality of some of it.
Watch the KH3 video by Nerd Odyssey. It's superior to this video in every single way.
Pretty sure the sewer area in twilight town in 3 is based off of some rooms from 358/2 days.
Amazing video on breaking down KH3, the editing and script is *chef's kiss* ! I was hyped for KH3 when it first came out, at the time I've been playing through all the games for the first time back to back leading up to its release. (I got into the series back in 2016 with Unchained X lol) I pretty much enjoyed every aspect of the game at the time, from the story, gameplay, and music. ReMind was just more of what I liked about KH3. Now that the hype has settled down after ReMind, I honestly don't enjoy replaying through the game again. The enemies as you've mentioned are a chore to fight, the worlds (to me at least) feel too big and drag on for too long, the combat is still enjoyable imo but is kinda moot given the enemies aren't that engaging. The only thing I still enjoy about 3 is the plot and writing (to a certain degree), even though it's convoluted and may be hit or miss for some.
Having said all that, I still get a lot of enjoyment out of replaying the first two mainline games, especially KH1. The combat is much more engaging and enjoyable in 1 given that Sora felt more grounded and combos were faster to execute. The tech system was very satisfying to play with and kept enemy encounters fresh since you were rewarded for exploiting enemy weaknesses. KH2 built upon the great combat of 1 with a bit more flare having added reaction commands, drive forms, and limits. (Sorry if the comment is a bit of a read, I was just really compelled to engage in the discussion.)
No worries, this isn't even the longest comment here. There's a sort of "nostalgia block" that I try to put on games when I go back to them, so for this review for example, I actually ended up finding and appreciating some things from 3 that I had missed before (though I'm still not a fan), and there were some negative things from 1 and 2 that I had overlooked. Obviously no one is aware of what I cut from the video's initial draft, but as you can tell I still felt strongly enough about 3 to say something. Going back to see if a game you played years ago still holds up is a lot of fun. I did this with Ratchet and Clank a few years back and realized that I similarly liked 1 and 2 way more than 3, which was the opposite of how I felt when I was a kid. I'm glad you liked the video.
I think my two biggest complains were the game felt too easy on proud and the level world designs were awful. I felt like it was just mash the attack button and you win. I felt the frozen world was absolute garbage and I felt like I didn't know where I was most of the time, was I making progress or not? Some felt way too large that you don't really do much in terms of game progression wise like the pirates and big hero 6 level
I liked 3 because of the gameplay options it gives you. There isn't a fighting style that's not viable, which I think is great. You can use combos, magic, shotlocks, flowmotion attacks, summons, multiple keyblades and their forms... And all of those options are actually usable and fun (except attractions). It keeps you from just mashing X to win, which is a great flaw in KH2 and makes it kinda tedious when you're not fighting bosses, in my opinion.
True, if there's one thing KH3 does right, it's diversity of combat options.
I feel like after kh dream drop Distance nomorah really had no idea of the stroy he was trying to tell and I don't think he understood y people loved characters like Roxas and xion or the ff cast I honestly feel like they should have given kh to a stroy writer that knew the story they wanted and how to do it if any of this makes sense
I like 3 for all the reason you liked 2. To explain in further detail, while yes most issues if not every issue you brought up is entirely valid, I got to play it on Critical for my first play through and that was easily the hardest experience I have ever had in a game save for Elden Ring. While it’s tacked on and from an update and definitely not the version the game was designed with intention of being how player’s experience the game, it was the most rewarding time I’ve had with a Kingdom Hearts game. It made every useless ability beyond useful and I found myself begging for attractions as I became overwhelmed by enemies since they give you a moment of reprise and time to figure out what your doing, it made the enemies more memorable as I kept saying to myself “please just fucking die, I need to heal your the only source of health, why aren’t you dying, oh god, the one on the other side of the zone is ready for an attraction, please just let me walk one minute with being fed a foot.”
to be fair none of the games that have critical had it on release ( 2's critical mode was added in the final mix)
I'm excited for KH4 because I am hopeful after seeing their response on Re:Mind. It meant that there will definitely be improvements and the dev team is definitely learning.
This is probably the best video explaining what makes KH3's combat not that great. I do feel like the devs were kinda hung up with the idea that Sora=floaty combat because Sora means sky and that could be his signature. I don't mind it if they know how to properly make it fun, and they're definitely learning from the way they make his movement super fluid and the way magic's execution works.
Yes, KH3’s story was rushed to get Nomura his ticket to KH VS 13. It sucks, because you can tell the people making the game had some passion behind it, but the director really wanted nothing to do with it, and to get it over with. Damn Nomura.
Yeah, seeing passion here and there throughout the game almost feels like a slap in the face thanks to the plot.
Story-wise, yes, it was rushed. Gameplay-wise, absolutely not.
It's clear that even with, like, 3 extra development years, the gameplay would not have changed.
@@ShadowbannedAccount Nah bro, gameplay and world design was rushed too. Look at the last Disney world, San Fransokyo. The world has no unique enemies of its own besides bosses, and the level design is just one big room that you explore twice with no substantial changes aside from the time of day. And no, putting metal on Olympus enemies doesn’t count as “unique” enemies. Plus the story of the world is all over the place with no real focus, which shows to me at least that it was rushed.
Scala and the Keyblade Graveyard also seem rushed, as the Graveyard is just a small maze, and Scala isn’t even explorable in the base game. Not to mention The Final World, which is just a big box you run around to grab Sora’s, before just becoming an empty room.
The entire endgame wanted to get itself over with, and to me it would seem it was the result of Nomura wanting the story to get itself over with. The pacing of the narrative ties more into gameplay and level design than you’d think, as I wouldn’t doubt that the story trying to rush itself is the reason that the original worlds in the game are pretty unfinished. As for San Fransokyo, I have a feeling that they made that world last, because as far as I recall, it was one of the last worlds they showed off in trailers.
@@pikachufrankie I wasn't talking about enemies or world design. I was talking about combos, combat, minigames, etc.
@@ShadowbannedAccount Everything works together, you can’t talk about one aspect in isolation like that.
I'm only excited about KH4 because rumors suggest that Nomura's going on a Smash Ultimate hunt for all the talent that worked on KH2FM that later left Square Enix. It's a mostly unfounded rumor based on the speculation and "research" of one dedicated 4chan user - there’s a lengthy writeup that gets posted every now and then, so I don’t have it on me since threads get deleted - but it'd be neat if it were true.
That definitely sounds made up, but I'm sure we'll find out once a real gameplay trailer comes out.
Brilliant video: the writing, the quality, the humor... Really, dissing on KH3 with R&C music in the background is just perfection; you gained (at least) a new sub.
Thanks!
There was a lot of love and passion put into Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2. It feels like 3 was just a sign of the developers saying” you waited for years for this, this is about all we can offer. I don’t know if the endless spin offs caused them to be so bored of their product or the fact that the spin offs made the story so over complicated. 3 should have came out years after 2 and if they wanted the birth by sleep game to connect to it that would’ve been easy they could of brought in those characters.
Really insightful video!
I just always felt KH3 was a bit off, but this really put it into words and in detail 😁
21:38 I'm gonna be honest, coming from God of War, the "action" commands were pretty lackluster. I could not believe that the devs thought that a one button action command was a good idea.
25:58 That gave me a good chuckle
I quite liked KH3. I first played it only last year when it finally got a PC release. This included the remind dlc so I had access to all of the small improvements that were brought to the original. One of the best improvements was the pro codes where you can turn off attractions all together. I ended up turning them off after the first world because they were seriously annoying. The combat never bothered me too much. I thought it was pretty weird that you could infinitely chain air combos at basically the start of the game, but overall it felt fine to me. I really enjoyed the story even though it did have low points. I haven't played every kingdom hearts game, but I know most of their stories and appreciated how it didn't bother trying to over explain things to newcomers. I had issues with the worlds. I had a friend ask me what my favorite was and I couldn't really tell because they all felt only okay compared to previous games. Maybe it's just nostalgia, but it felt like there were much more memorable places in previous games. Monsters Inc especially didn't feel like there was a "place" to be or something that was very memorable from the movies other than the work room where the doors come in. The land of Corona felt like a big Forest hallway until you got to the town. Arendelle especially felt very one note. I was also disappointed by most characters not being voiced by their original actors especially when compared to the earlier games. Even with all that stuff, the game just feels so fucking good. The ending made me tear up multiple times and it just makes me happy that it exists, flaws and all.
the reason i’m excited for kh4 isn’t because i loved kh3 so much i need to see more. so much as it is that the first two games made me fall in love with the series and i know that what made those games good in the first place is still imbedded within the soul of kingdom hearts. although to put it simply, i love this stupid game and im just along for the ride at this point.
Still annoyed with the treatment FF got. To be told how pivotal all these Disney characters like Finn or Woody or Elsa are supposed to be... or characters like Aladdin or Ariel or Simba or Jack. When literally any character who really mattered to the main story in KH1 showed up in Hollow Bastion at the end, or soon thereafter. Which included FF characters.
People wanna go on an on about how one of every two visits to the Disney worlds in KH2 are filler, meanwhile who's present in the main story worlds for arguably the more important events? Who are we helping fight off 1000 heartless? Who got people fanboying and fangirling just by stepping into frame? Pooh? Mushu? Herc? Cloud alone gets more hype than shirtless Mickey. Even people who don't know Auron can feel the vibes of FFX's story drifting off of him in the underworld. And at least the FF characters were never able to rehash their own storylines beat-for-beat either.
Nomura needs to check the privileges the series has. If nothing else, Disney is what convinced parents to willingly pick up the game for their kids. But FF is a big part of what initially made people pay any mind to it. Back in the day, FF bosses were what made people see some depth in the combat before the final mix versions were well-known.
The promise that you could have an odd combination of Disney with the renowned storytelling of a Square RPG, with Square characters. To have their FF counterparts taken away when Sora was as much a consistent friend to them as he is to Herc? Fakeness. If the TWEWY crew don't show in KH4, then what was the point? In some ways, I'm hoping Disney takes a bigger backseat in KH4, even if it means letting Nomura just make VersusXIII. I for one am more than willing to play an entire game made of nothing but the non-disney worlds.
This video is extremly biased and there is certainly many things I absolutly agree with.
This game is heavaly flawed is many aspects: The Disney worlds feel like they don't matter and were just an obsticle to clear before the story actually started. Which made the Pacing horrible. KH3 feels like it really starts when you get to save Aqua and this is a problem. The fact that the best parts of it are behind the Re:Mind DLC is also bad, but the game get's sold pretty much everywhere with the DLC tagged on.
Attractions were a blatant mistake, It also feels like they got the messege loud and clear since they give you 2 ways you can turn them off. Like you said they were just basic nukes with invinsability on top of it.
Now onto things I have to dissagree. The movement in KH3 is war from beeing bad and it's far and wide the best movement KH has ever had, specially from a starting point. What do I mean by that you may asking. KH1s movement was sluggish it's also excusable because it was the first in the series. KH2s movement was great but the game didn't give you an opportunity to actually use it, which then only came with the Final Mix in the Cavern of Remembrece, which can also be considered DLC just before DLC was a thing and it wasn't really available outside of japan for many years.
But KH2s movement at the start was abysmaly bad as well. For thouse who didn't remember KH2 Sora had no Dodgeroll at the start, which means that up until Sora got Wisdom Form leveled up he was stuck and could only block. Which is probably the reason reaction commands even exist. How you level up the different drive forms isn't really explained in game either.
The Drive Forms themselfs are level capped until you unlock the next form. High Jump comes from Valorant, Quick Run, which was the dodgeroll alternative for many years, comes from leveling up wisdom, Arial Dodge comes from Master, Dodge roll from limit and Glide from Final. Obvious for you and me, not obvious for many many people that started KH2 in the first place. This absoluty is a point of critisim towards KH2 which gets forgotten.
KH3 Sora on the other hand has fantastic movement from the start that gets upgraded naturaly through the story, meaning you have to pass certain points before you can use or equip something. His walk is fast and flowmotion gives you some extra options which is nice, but you can turn them of if you don't like to. You can block mid air now, which is really nice. And Airstep is the single best thing added to KH since the drive forms, I will die on this hill. The single best part of KH3 is it's movement and how you can use it in different ways. It clearly was a focus and absolutly far from perfect but I can't say that it was bad. The combat beeing floaty isn't not necceserly bad either. For me it was a logical progression and it allowed me to see the bosses Bodies instead of watching the feet 24/7.
The combat in KH2 is the one with the most deeph to it for sure and it's sad that KH3 sacrafices much of that deeph for accessebility, for lack of a better word. KH3 has the best collection of superbosses in the series, you didn't rly touched on thouse aside from a passing statement about them beeing extremly late into the game, which is fair. But KH3s combat system shines in thouse bossfights specificly and you have to learn the ins and outs of it for this. Same thing with KH2 the superbosses also fulfilled the same niche. It's for thouse who want to be challenged.
Things that actually make KH3s combat feel worse is not the floatyness it's that it all feels the same. KH3s approach to combat has the following:
Basic combos
Magic
Team Attacks
Attractions
Links
Magic and Basic combos can be used together for different looking ones, which is the only real combination one can experiment with.
Fire
Blizzard
Water
are bascicly the same magic with different flavor. Fire has better hoaming, Blizzard let's you scate on it trail if you use it on the ground and Water gives you a Barrier that damages before it becomes a projectile. Every one of the upgraded versions just makes a bigger explosion at the end.
Aero
and Thunder are in the same kathegorie of just beeing an AOE spell with Thunder beeing much fast to use and Aero let's you use flomotion, just upwards. Both just turn into screen nukes at the end.
Team attacks: just different looking screennukes.
Attractions: Screennukes with added invisability fot the better part of a minute.
Links: Screen Nukes with added Invisablity for the better part of a minute.
Keyblade finishers are also just big screen nukes, but they at least have different looking combos.
This made most battles trivial and therefore didn't rly give a challenge to the player and just made fights feel like they are just there for padding reasons. Which in an Character Action game is basicly always the case but if you start feeling like this then this is clearly flawed. They added the Procodes on top of the No Experience Ability to make up for that, I did multiple runs with different combinations and Level 1 runs actually feel like you have to understand the enemys to fight them. But this beeing something optional makes me think they just made it this easy just for newcommers to get into the franchise. Which is probably the reason Keyblade transformations are not on the Menu. KH2s manuing midfight is a pretty weird learning curve for newcommers and it's something the game get's criticized to this very day. Having just 4 Options on the Menu makes is probably the right call in this instance, I just happen to dissagree with this decision because of my liking to the drive forms of 2, but I get it why they made it this way.
There is much more I could write about but don't want to write this all day. Just that KH3 isn't a bad game, far from it. It has really good ideas in terms of combat and if they Iron out these things than I am absolutly going to play KH4. Yozoras Bossfight is something I very much enjoyed and if they have more of thouse coming, I'm all for it. I will be critical where it needs to be just as I am with 2 and 3. But I'm looking for 4 just because Re:Mind actually made me really like the game because it forced me to interact with it. Something I absolutly didn't do before.
BTW: I appologies for my poor grammer here. English isn't my first lenguage and I am writing this on the fly so. Either way, Thank you for reading, whoever took the time. Have a nice day.
The only compliant I had about base KH3 was the lack of FF characters. Even the DLC didn’t introduce any new ones.
Despite the floatiness, the reason I played through KH3 was because the game just felt so SMOOTH to play. Combat animations, the speed of movement (with the exception of the "down" direction), and the combat versatility was just innately satisfying to play. I still prefer KH2 combat, and KH1 combat has higher stakes for each decision you make (truly the Dark Souls of video games, I know), but it all felt so fluid. Even if most Kingdom Hearts dialogue makes me want to scratch my head at high velocity with a rock.
It took all of my might to not actually say something about Dark Souls in the video when talking about the intentionality of KH1's combat. But yeah, besides magic being busted, sliding while casting genuinely felt better than magic ever felt before.
I love the verticality of the combat in KH3, and by the way your path to the ground is always shotlock step.
Why is the lock on so bad? It's not a big deal on Proud because the game is easy. But on Critical enemies hit you hard so you need a job functioning camera. It's awful.
Really, this video is very good and your creativity in edition makes it even better haha
Bruh when he was talking about the gravity in 3 I was on my knees screaming
*JUST USE AIRSTEP*
Edit: you can use shotlock mid finisher
This really made me and my brother talk about what we loved about 1 & 2, and how 3 just dropped the ball so hard.
I can tell I'm getting a glimpse at a TH-cam channel that will be huge a few years from now. Given your size, your editing, comedic timing, and presentation are top notch. The content you cover feels substantial without being overly indulgent, you consistently sprinkle in humor to keep the viewer entertained when discussing a pretty niche/dry topic without putting the video's main purpose on pause to do so, and you wisely decided to address aspects of the game that haven't been analyzed to death by others (outside of a bit of overlap with Bl00dyBizkitz's vid "The Consequences of Floaty Combat in Kingdom Hearts.")
Maybe I'm just biased because I also really didn't like the game, but it's refreshing seeing someone talk about Kingdom Hears 3 as a video game first and foremost. It seems like most people that discuss it fall into one of two camps: Those that praise it talk about it like it's nothing more than a vehicle for lore that they're so invested in, that the quality of actually playing it as a game never really mattered to them. Most people that criticize it, on the other hand, seem to come from a place of "they ruined the story" or they're complete outsiders to the franchise and make a surprised Pikachu face when the whole thing feels alien and cringe to them. Kingdom Hearts has a devoted following obsessed with the huge cast and the expanded universe, but it only cultivated that by being fun to play first and foremost. No one's gonna stick around long enough to read 500 secret Ansem's reports unless beating up Heartless is fun and the level design is engaging.
tl:dr: great takes, great presentation, and i'm looking forward to seeing this channel blow up
Very kind words, I appreciate it!
I'm not getting KH4 Square can shove it. At first I like KH3 but the more I thought about it and the more I played it I was like...why is it like this and why they made it this way? Me and my friend both agreed this game was rushed as hell. I can play any other KH game but when it comes to KH3 it pissed me off and the DLC crap didn't help. I didn't buy it because all of that should have been in the game. I've seen all of the DLC has and im not impress about it. KH2 Final Mix is so much better than this crap. Nomura did say that KH3D is the real Kingdom Hearts 3 which make sense if you look back at it. I know some don't like KH3D but I do. Now adays when I play the KH game I play all of them expect for KH3. That game I will NEVER play again.
3's story felt a lot weaker than 1 & 2, and I can't quite pin why. I'd say it's that the worlds didn't feel as meaningful, but I had it pointed out to me that there was almost always something in each world. So why not? I feel it's because there doesn't seem to be a good *reason* for Sora to be going through each of these worlds. He's just wandering around because grandpa Yen Sid said so, until suddenly they're at the Keyblade Graveyard and the story quickly wraps up.
As for gameplay, I miss drive forms. Form changes just felt weird, not as fun, or as cool as drive forms were. Drive forms felt a lot more deliberate and powerful. How you got them was as intentional as you can get- you unlock them and select them from the command menu. You felt their power, and they grew with you the more you used them, and you were rewarded for using them with cool abilities. Formchanges turned your keyblade into something completely random and you had no incentive to use them for any other reason than they're powerful. Them appearing as an option also felt completely random. That little mystery meter was frustrating to try and grasp, too.
I never quite registered the combat with regular enemies, but you make really good points. KH1 was way more engaging with how you interacted with enemies. Hell, even reaction commands in 2 feel like a gimmick compared to 1 on some level. In 3, I never even really needed to use Block until the data fights at the end of the DLC!
Oh yeah, I disabled Attractions instantly. They seemed so needless and stupid. It just felt like a shoehorned in ad for theme park rides than a gameplay feature.
I'm only hopeful for 4 because people have voiced their concerns and I hope Nomura has listened.
Storywise, it's entirely the worlds being unnecessary. The game tries to present reasons for where Sora goes but most of the time it's because... he wanted to? He's meant to be getting stronger to learn the power of waking but, not only does he just get it in the end, he also doesn't do much in relation to it before that point.
KH1 and KH2's worlds had constant thematic ties and world-building. Sure, Sora was mostly there for the ride, but he was there for a reason. KH1 had him finding the keyholes to protect the worlds, KH2 had him, IIRC, opening connections between worlds. Not only that, but many scenes in the worlds reflected topics and issues Sora was tackling within himself. I specifically remember TNBC having Jack's relationship echo Sora and Kairi, a weak example, but an example nonetheless. KH3 he... laughs... fights... climbs a mountain twice. It all felt redundant as a consequence, unless you really loved the world you were in. It's not until Keyblade Graveyard really that those narrative ties return. Hell, even Twilight was weak with how it connected itself
That's my take on the story, at least, but gameplay was just whatever to me until Re:Mind showed me what it could have been
this was the most disapointing game ever. it was "Beginning! Still beginning, still beginning? ENDING ENDING ENDING!! ENDING!!!" Buy the DLC for a better ending!
Entire reason y the box is important is bcuz the whole darkseeker thing started with the mom spawning an idea in xehanorts head hes also the reason the keyblade war happened, the story for kh is way more complicated and goes even further back than u think , u may consider tht box filler but its actually important , I do agree with the characteristics of the enemies , having boring enemies would definitely make a game boring however I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say the reason y the enemies dont seem the big of a problem anymore could be bcuz sora is way stronger now and maybe they made the gameplay show tht in a sense, I really dont know y final fantasy characters were cut but looks like we get more of them in 4 seeing as sora is in quadratum, maybe we'll get to see more serious worlds , seeing as kh so far has been mostly Disney oriented, I'm curious to see wht it'd be like with more final fantasy stuff outside of wht we saw so far in the franchise
100% agree with everything you said. I think it's ok if you like something but ignoring the flaws it might have is wrong and dangerous. I loved the series but 3 left me down and 4s trailer got me really worried about its future. Anyway loved your video and a big PLUS for the Blazblue and Under-night music in the background
at 9:40, well I don't think they advertised it but a big new change in gameplay of kh3 which you did not mention is switching keyblades on the fly or in a middle of a battle, thats something which was not possible in other games and sora carrying 3 keyblades.
That is true. Keyblade swapping would have had limited value before, but with the formchanges in 3 the keyblade swapping was a smart thing to add.
I love how the slideshow at the end is just T&A.🤣
Hey Kaze, have you ever thought of making a multiplayer mode for Yoshi Story?
That would be so much fun, hackish for the camera controls but still fun.
I personally only really really enjoyed KH2, probably becuase i am such a gamplay guy.
I replayed it multiple times, few times on critical, some times with different mods and i also really enjoy the randomizer.
After i played through KH2 for the first time in like 2010, i played 1 and hated it... Later played through CoM, BBS and more. No one catched me nearly as hard as 2.
Hopped 3 would be nice, but got really dissapointed when playing it at a friends place
Tbh now i am no longer interessted in the series
My biggest issue with KH3 is for them to take away reaction commands! It's like if they just decided to take away magic in KH4. RC's felt just as ingrained and perfectly balanced for the combat as magic was in KH2. (Other than OP Reflect, and magic spam in final form)
Have you not gotten caught up with Union X, or even watched the Back Cover movie in the 2.8 collection?
Scala is visually and narratively important because littered throughout the town are little hints and nods. The Clocktower on the clock/mural in ReMind was the clocktower from Daybreak Town.
During the underwater section of the battle, you even see a flipped upside down ruined version of that same clocktower. Clearly the game is showing you that Scala is what became of the remains of Daybreak Town after the Keyblade War of centuries ago.
Xehanort saying it's "the nexus from which all worlds spring" or such, is his own interpretation of his readings on the Age of Fairytales (the time of Union X), because back in the AoF, all worlds were one, and Daybreak Town was the hub from which Keyblade wielders resided.
This is all info that we had before kh3 btw. We had heard Kairi's grandma's story about the world falling to darkness and being reborn at least twice, and Xehanort reiterates it and expands on it in his secret reports in BBS, and Chi was released in 2013, Unchained X in 2015 or so, and Union X was at the point where Lauriam and Elrena were revealed by KH3's release. Even then, you'd only truly *need* Back Cover (2017) to understand.
That's not even mentioning the odd script covering the town, which also somehow shows up in KH3 Twilight Town, Mickey's library in DDD HD, and now is seen in Quadratum in the KH4 trailer, which should be interesting seeing as how Quadratum (as I believe Ansem calls it, Unreality) and the KH Reality should be entirely disconnected. Like that's interesting to me.
Also hey can you like... not make sexual jokes about two different characters who are minors, that's kinda weird
I'm not caught up with Union X, but I think you somewhat misinterpreted what I was saying. I am aware that Scala is a callback to Daybreak, but my points are to emphasize what the worlds mean through visual design. I think callbacks are cool, and I like references to past games since it proves they exist and matter, but I want more visual information to tell me directly what a world is all about. Scala having only references to past games would imply that it exists solely as a reference, but every world should have a strong personal identity. If instead of keyblades, KH characters used drills, then a mining town would make sense. If they controlled fire, then things like hot air balloons being used for travel would make sense. The reason I focused on seafaring references was because I think, as a theme regarding Daybreak as a hub, it does work. It implies that travel is frequent enough to warrant focusing a world around travel. It's a good idea, but doesn't go any further than that base level, and once you step away from the "port" area, the seafaring theme almost completely dies out.
To put it another way, if you've ever seen Avatar: The Last Airbender, when they get to Ba Sing Se, it doesn't just have pictures of the king and a bunch of earthbenders throwing rocks in a normal city, it devises methods of travel using earthbending (in this case, trains), all buildings are made of stone, the city walls are made of stone, the people wear the Earth Nation colors, etc. This makes you immediately aware of what the place is on a subconscious level, due to the extent to which it is themed. If no one explained Scala Ad Caelum to me, if I had no awareness of the lore, then the city would mean nothing to me. But even a first-time viewer of concept art would know what the End of the World is trying to show.
So again, it's not that I didn't notice this stuff, it's that it wasn't really my point.
Also, Kairi was 14 in KH1, and I was 8 at the time. She's technically older than me.
I think my biggest issue with the floaty feel of KH3 wasn't necessarily the time spent in the air, exactly. It was more so how the *first* boss faced (That being the classic Darkside), I was able to just... Attack up to his head. I jumped once. Mashed 'x'. And I was attacking his head. And I remained up there attacking his head until he died.
This was, obviously, not something that could be accomplished in 1 or 2. If you wanted to attack the head of the first (Or second) Darkside you faced in KH1, you had to wait until he thrust his hand into the ground before running up his arm (Which netted the Tech points). In KH2, you had to wait until the Twilight Thorn lowered his head down onto the battle arena to attack it. In neither games could you just jump once and mash 'x' to reach the head of this large enemy.
Excellent vid. KH1 from the ps2 days was my jam but once players are required to own/borrow a gba, psp, 3ds, mobile phone and who knows what else to keep up with a convoluted never ending story I was resigned to the idea that anything bearing the Kingdom Hearts name would be a waste of time. Even with 2 I already started to become jaded. Nowadays, I'm only waiting for a deep discount for the first 2 games on the Epic store so I can revisit the 2 games and maybe MAYBE give the series another shot.
i feel like nomura and his team just made kh 1 & 2 accidently good(every game has flaws), maybe the team that worked on these 2 games was much more into it than him, the other games were all well unique to say the least, but i liked BBB and DDD was kinda fun, too.
Overall kh3 feels rushed (even though they had so much time) and not really deep like some of the other games, they just kinda put things toghether without much thought, the combat feels floaty and sluggish in a way, just like the dialogues and story.
The conclusion to the story was pretty bad as well, xehanort misunderstood bad guy c'mon you have to build up towards something like this and not just throw it at the end like it suddenly means something. The end didnt make any sense if you have followed the story from the beginning.
Sora somehow sounds more childish and dumber than in DDD, which i dont understand why, since he is supposed to be more grown up now.
Also every character telling him he is weaker doesnt make any sense again, even though he beat them all and has even more tools to beat them now, oh bht he doesnt have the power of waking, who cares he is easily stronger than any other so called keyblade master and even pulls the same power out of his ass to save anyone when he needs it, even though riku supposedly has it as well, for some reason he cant save aqua, but sora can.
Also the whole reason sora even travels to these new worlds is to somehow find the power of waking, which means all of the disney stories are filler and useless to the main plot, since they dont connect to the main plot at all, he does not fin the power of waking im any of them and the organization isnt fought in any of them exept when they summon some giant heartless monster or trash talk and than run away again.
Kh x disney x ff x ?, should be the formula going forward, i thought of kh as disney x ff, but even though i didnt like it that the ff char where left out this game has to many issues to complain about that.
Its almost as if nomura doesnt like or understand the kh games at all and was just salty about ff versus 13.
In my case, I enjoy the mods. Particularly, character swapping, especially with revamped or rebalanced movesets, and co-op. That's about it. Without mods, no real reason I can find to play it.
Mostly agree and think KH deserves even more lambasting, but have different ideas to each conclusion. In response to each part.
Gravity: I would say part of the problem is that "floatiness" is in large part "unresponsiveness". I blame 90% of this on Magic Flash, some formchanges, and guarding in the air, but KH feels more unresponsive than it probably is, and at least the team has been improving with each game since BBS. Though a trailer analysis revealed that there was better animation canceling for specific attacks in certain trailers, so maybe they know the right answer and choose wrong despite that. For improvements the only thing I would add is speeding up the canceling on the combos and don't have blocking freeze Sora midair.
Attractions: This can be solved with one simple rational: The best attraction is the train, so other attractions can be better by being like the train. Tailor them to and for specific bosses and setpieces. With how many bosses don't have a gimmick or do but it's "do basic combat but better" there's definitely room for them. For example in the frosty wolf fight when the timer gimmick is set instead of just fighting small wolves you get to use the blaster attraction to hunt them down.
Original Worlds: In my opinion the final world should've been the Final World, and the Final World should've been Kingdom Hearts. That said thematically Scala ad Caelum could've worked if it had been used as the tutorial level (playing as either Eraqus or Xehanort) in its shiny state, and it's broken state in the final boss as both a call-back to KH1 and shows what Xehanort lost that could (especially considering his retconned goal) drive him.
Enemies: The only improvements I could see making (and improvements I desperately want for games like this in general but that's beside the point) basic enemies better would be for them to be able to act with a degree of intelligence, especially in regards to being able to block/dodge and being both more vulnerable and aggressive. After all Sora's screen-clearing moves are only as good as the damage they do. Humanoid bosses should take this to the extreme that they're practically PvP. Boss Aqua is powerful but she's incredibly artificial, I'd take a halfway decent enemy version of Playable Aqua any day.
To me kh3 feels like comfort food. Both this and the borderlands series are games I can come back to when I just wanna relax and enjoy laid back spectacle before going back to more hardcore games like souls and such. Sometimes easy/mindless colorful fun is nice and my kids recognize the characters so that's neat also.
I can't emphatize enough how much the devs improved in remind.
they added the midrange options the game lacked like flashstep, improved/added cancel windows to reduce the clunk, dark/light/double forms are far superior to the vanilla transformations and their boss design somehow went from trash tier to actually goated.
I actually think KH4 will be pretty good, at least in gameplay.
just let them keep unreal engine for the love of god.
Can't imagine they'll switch from Unreal. KH3 assets and code should be able to move smoothly into the next game, swapping engines would just hurt their workflow.
I never liked kh3 to begin with, (KH2 fan here) but what made me love it was definitely the data fights and remind. It showed me that the dev team was relearning how to do good KH combat again. Also I love the kh plot minus a bunch of shit in 3