KH3 really just let me down on every front.
Worlds = Only 7 real ones. All the original worlds were either a single room, or even smaller than in previous games. 100 Acre Wood was just…pathetic.
Gameplay = Never expected it to be as good as KH2′s, but even on Proud Mode it was piss easy.
Bosses = Only three real Disney villain fights (the Titans, Davy Jones, and Baymax). Marshmallow I *guess* counts, but it’s not like he’s even a main character from Frozen.
Final Fantasy = No characters come back. No conclusion to Leon’s arc, or even a cameo of them working in Radiant Garden after they spent a whole year rebuilding it. Only Moogles and cactuars and other frivilous stuff.
Audio = The audio mixing was bad, and the voice over audio sounded poorly recorded. The SFX also drowned out the BGM more than other games, so I couldn’t even appreciate the soundtrack like I usually could.
Story = Terribly written. Reached fan-fiction level by the end, and they pretty much disrespected almost every character in some way.
Sora = Can’t even get a happy ending. Gets subjected to cheap sequel bait.
Riku = His only arc in the game was to save Aqua. Sora did it anyway. Never gets to interact with Terra.
Kairi = Forced to work with her kidnapper. Kidnapped again. Killed twice. All of her training was meaningless. Wasn’t even present for Xehanort’s defeat along with literally every other main character.
Terra = His rescue was so anticlimactic. How does Terranort even exist in the same time as Masternort? If they were both recompleted, then explain that. Nothing was explained. Also, he’s the one who’s suffered at Xehanort’s hand the worst and the longest, and he didn’t even get a chance to fight him.
Aqua = “You’ve seen me weak for too long.” Gets defeated. Also, whatever happened to her armor in the Chamber of Repose?
Roxas = His character model looks real bad. Gets almost no screentime after being hyped up to be the “biggest mystery of KH3.” Never gets a real apology out of Axel for his behavior. Has to now hang out with Isa, who spent his whole life bullying him.
Xion = Doesn’t explain how she comes back. Never gets an apology out of Axel for how he treated her. Has to now hang out with Isa, who spent her whole life bullying -and trying to kill- her.
Namine = Only gets one line of missable dialogue, and only appears in the ending cutscene. Come the fuck on. Then wakes up to the faces of DiZ, Vexen, and Zexion looking down on her – that’s just terrifying shit right there.
Xehanort = How is he playing chess as a young kid if he didn’t leave the Islands and get a keyblade until he was older? His boss fight was so bad compared to Ansem’s and Xemnas’s, and everyone just accepts his defeat and lets him have a peaceful ending. What kind of shit is that?
Eraqus = Literally forgives the guy who murdered him and then possessed his son.
Xemnas = So…him talking to Aqua’s armor and having Terra’s memories didn’t mean anything, huh? What about secretly having a Keyblade? Nothing? Oh, okay, cool.
AnsemSoD = Gets sent to look for some mystery girl. Never brought up again, and that’s pretty much his entire role in the plot outside of being in the final fights.
Xaldin [Dilan] = Gets no lines.
Lexaeus [Aeleus] = Gets no lines.
Axel [Lea] = This isn’t even really disrespectful for the character himself, but he pretty much gets off scot free from everything he’s done, and gets all his friends back. That’s lazy writing. He even breaks the fourth wall by pretty much saying he can do anything he wants because he’s popular.
Saix [Isa] = So…were you the one working with Vexen? Cuz it’s never explained. Finally reveals what his and Lea’s plan was, and…it’s some Union X stuff.
Demyx [????] = Fell off the face of the Earth. Still know nothing about him. Never learned his real name. Go play Union X.
Luxord [?????] = Spent whole game looking for black box that wasn’t relevant to the plot. His wild card is just sequel bait. Still know nothing about him. Never learned his real name. Go play Union X.
Marluxia [Lauriam] = Still don’t know why he tried to throw a coup. Don’t even know why he came back. Go play Union X.
Larxene [Erlena] = Still don’t know why she tried to throw a coup. Don’t even know why she came back. Go play Union X.
Young Xehanort = What a waste of a character. He was evil for the sake of being evil. This one’s honestly on me for being disappointed, because I was expecting them to actually do something with him to develop Master Xehanort, but no, just generic bad guy.
Maleficent & Pete = Do nothing the whole game. Again. For like the 4th time. They were looking for the black box, and the black box turned out to have nothing to do with KH3′s plot. Great.
I’m sure there’s more I’m missing. And everyone else was pretty much fine, with Even, Ienzo, Xigbar, and Riku Replica being the stand-outs in good writing. But even then, Ventus barely get to do anything, and Mickey was hardly around. Just, almost everyone got shafted in the writing so badly.
And I’m not saying it’s *easy* to write a plot that involves so many characters and managed to give everyone screentime, but at the same time, this game has almost 11 hours of cutscenes, so there was definitely enough time to give everyone some love. Esp after playing Red Dead 2 last year, where the main character’s camp has a good 20 characters in it, and I felt like I got to know almost everyone by the end of the game. It was satisfying to play.
KH3 was just very unsatisfying.
Obviously, there’s stuff that I like, but this post is just to focus on the cons. I just really feel let down after waiting 13 years for a real Kingdom Hearts 3 to come out. After FFXV, and now this, I think I’m done with Square Enix. I had always asked for a sequel to TWEWY, but I don’t trust them to even make a good sequel to that anymore.
