Kingdom Hearts III Review

Only thirteen years after the last mainstay game in the franchise, Kingdom Hearts III has finally been released in January 2019 for the PS4 and Xbox One. Each of the main series games was developed by Square Enix and is a great action RPG romp through Disney and Pixar’s beloved settings and characters. The Kingdom Hearts series has become a beloved game for those who love RPGs and the Disney franchise.

Kingdom Hearts III finally comes to the conclusion of the story, where the warriors of light — Sora, Goofy, Donald, Mickey, Riku — continue the battle against the darkness through Xehanort, who is trying to start a second Keyblade War. To save the world, Sora and his gang must move through the different Disney worlds — ranging from Arendell and even the Black Pearl. Their quest is to find the seven Guardians of Light and the Key to Return Hearts. While moving through the world, Sora and party encounter three different types of enemies: Heartless, Nobodies, and the Unversed. In Square Enix fashion, there’s even a secret ending that you can unlock that was added shortly following the release.

The graphics and story are both fantastic, neither disappoint on any level. The story builds on the same themes that made the original games so well loved. Friendship, love, loss, hope, and failure. While the game has always been on the borderline JRPG side, but it handles these themes in such a great way that it’s easy to slip into the story. The graphics are updated and bring the game up to a whole new level. It’s one thing to play the first in the series and to jump into the latest game. Square Enix has retained the same cartoonish style flawlessly while making everything far crisper.

The combat system remains mostly the same, with a slightly updated hack-and-slash fighting system. You can unlock different keyblades to use as a sword and whack away at Heartless and Nobodies all day if you’d like. Or you can change the appearance of your keyblade into different weapons. One such transformation is into the Shooting Star keyblade, which is more of a ranged weapon.

Sora can also summon Links, other well-known and well-loved Disney characters who can help you battle. There’s also a new addition to the combat is the use of Attractions. Actually, attractions at Disney world that deal damage to enemies. Each world has a different ride attached to it, forcing you to learn the use of each of them. It’s sort of strange to see these attractions at first, but they evoke the same whimsy as the rest of the game.

This final installment retains nearly everything that the original games had — the style, the story, the hack-and-slash combat system. While this keeps all of the continuity for the series, there are a few aspects that could have used some updating. The biggest complaint here is the way that the character moves across the screen.

There’s very little actual inertia relating to the character, so it sort of feels like pushing a piece of paper across the table. There’s no real resistance to the characters, like other RPG’s have. It’s difficult to explain until you accidentally propel yourself off a ledge or have a jump fall short. This is something that has been carried over from the other games, but it feels like it should have been resolved by now.

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Kingdom Hearts III has eliminated some of the slowness of the previous games, starting out in Olympus and getting the action going right off the bat. Otherwise, the replayability is relatively low — there’s really nothing driving you to come back and play again, other than brute force nostalgia. But for many, that’ll be enough to keep returning to help Sora and King Mickey defeat the darkness, not just in Kingdom Hearts III, but for the whole franchise.

This game has been well received, with good reason. While I didn’t keep up with the previous games as soon as they launched, I was able to play through the first two games together about 4 years ago. I even played through some of the other games. Kingdom Hearts III sticks to everything that had been presented before.

While some people may not enjoy it, as it can seem extremely outdated compared to the more modern RPGs that are flooding the market right now. But if you’ve been waiting for this game because you have been a fan of the series for years, then don’t miss this. This game will bring back everything that you loved about the previous games. If the Kingdom Hearts franchise was never your cup of tea, check out 2018’s Ni no Kuni II or Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom for other JRPG fun.