Kingdom Hearts 3

So, in case you don't know this about me, which is kind of impossible at this point, the entire Kingdom Hearts series is my favourite piece of entertainment ever and is easily my favourite story I've ever heard. And, as you all know from following this blog for a long time, Kingdom Hearts 3 has been my most anticipated release in my whole life. And with everything in the marketing showing how amazing this was gonna be, it just got to the point where I couldn't hold it in anymore. And, in the end, after all that build up and anticipation, what did I inevitably think of it? Honestly, I'm not 100% sure. But I definetly think it's absolutely amazing and the anticipation was totally worth it. Where I feel I'm not 100% sure at is the ending because I felt a lot of things during the ending. Also, I'll be doing a spoiler-free part to the review and then I'll be doing a spoiler part because there's a lot to talk about. So, let's go with the story first like always. It starts off with another amazing opening like every other Kingdom Hearts game, but the opening in this is completely different to the way we saw when it was revealed to us. Not hugely different, still though. It then actually opens with the ending of 0.2 where Sora, Donald and Goofy heading to Olympus after Sora failed the Mark Of Mastery exam. They go there because Sora believes going there will help him figure out the thing Yen Sid said will help him unlock the power of waking. When they get there, Sora doesn't exactly get what he was expecting. While that's going on, Riku and King Mickey are in the Realm Of Darkness trying to save Aqua and Kairi and Lea are somewhere else training to be Keyblade wielders, even with Kairi writing to Sora. When Sora and others get back, he and the others are informed of what to do next and he even gets a new suit and he even looks a little different too. Riku and King Mickey's Keyblades also break so they have to report back with them being able to get new Keyblades now too. And they're getting ready to fight Xehanort. And I'm gonna stop right there. I know, kinda vague, but that's really the best I can do without revealing much else. So, yeah, like the other Kingdom Hearts reviews, I'll talk about the gameplay first and then move onto my thoughts on the story. This is pretty much tied with Kingdom Hearts 2 when it comes to gameplay, and it may even be better. As you all know from the trailers and things like that, there's a huge variety when it comes to the action in this. Because of the different Keyblades you get, you can use them as different weapons and transformations you can do with the Keyblades you get. They can transform into other weapons like hammers, guns or staffs or anything like that. And the way Sora can activate is awesome. As well as all the park ride attacks he can do like the teacups, the pirate ship and the water ride, that was all cool to use. There's also the mechanic to switch Keyblades during the fight. Once you have one Keyblade selected, you can press the arrows left or right to select a different one. Plus, I have to talk about probably the biggest different with this game from the others. The fact that this was made by the Unreal Engine 4, like how 0.2 was. And yeah, it definitely paid off. This is easily the best looking Kingdom Hearts game out there. Not just the textures and the beautiful landscapes, but also the characters. Just the little details on them and look of their skin and everything. Even in parts of the Disney worlds, like for example the Caribbean, I was sorta making a joke that there's no way they coulda made it look this good, this musta just taken the clip out from the movie and put it in here. That's how good the graphics are in this and it's just what you'd expect from Square Enix at this point. How they managed to make all this look just like the movies is incredible. And yeah, it definetly felt like I was really in these Disney worlds and exploring them. But I also liked how they redesigned some things like the returning worlds or the characters themselves. I'm personally still not the biggest fan of Sora's redesign, but, it's actually starting to grow on me. And everyone else look great too. Speaking of which, yeah, let's move onto the most important part of the entire Kingdom Hearts series, the story and the characters. What else can I say besides they're just as fantastic and amazing as before. Sora is still the same lovable character as before, and everyone is great too. Just seeing all these characters back like this and teaming up after all this time is just amazing. And the cast is just as great as they've ever been. Haley Joel Osment is still the best casting choice for anything in my opinion, and he's still perfect as Sora. Everyone else is just as amazing. And even the new cast like Alyson Stoner replacing Hayden Panettiere as Kairi still do great jobs of capturing what makes these characters so great and lovable. And as the game progresses, it just shows more and more of the plot like Organization XIII showing up every once in a while, what's happening to Riku and King Mickey in he Realm Of Darkness and what's happening to all the other characters too like Aqua and even Ansem the Wise. This gamed perfectly knew how to balance all these characters so well and do in a way that felt like a proper combination of all these years of build-up. And every time something really exciting happened or some characters reveal happened, I couldn't help getting hyper and really excited and kinda freaking put because of how the story was progressing. Tetsuya Nomura once again shows that he has an amazing imagination when it comes to crafting this story and fuelling the events the set-up what's happening next. Especially as you enter the final act of the game. That's when everything just went through the roof. I could not contain myself at all throughout the ending because there were so many amazing and satisfying moments that just me cheer and grin from ear to ear. And there were so many shocking moments that made me freak out too. And even cry because I couldn't believe what was happening to these characters. Speaking of the ending, Nomura himself actually said he rewrote the ending multiple times, and it shows that he put a lot of thought into it. And, I'm not gonna lie, the ending of this, like, the actual ending, traumatised me because of what happened. As soon as it happened and the credits started rolling, I started shaking and at points because of it, and I still can't. And what they do to Xehanort at the end was just mind-blowing to me. The game also has a lot of other awesome amazing moments that I don't want to talk about until the spoilers because I wan to talk about all the details. But this game also has so many satisfying moments too. Just a lot of moments that we fans have been waiting for for a long time. Also, this is kind of small thing, but I really love every scene with Sora and Kairi together. The relationship between the two of them has been one of the most important elements in these games and this game took it to new directions. And, like I said, some things happen that we've wanted to see for a long time, and something they do is one of them. Every scene with them made my heart beat really fast. Honestly, saying all this good stuff, the only issue I have with the game is the Gummi Ship segments. This is the most different Gummi Ship system in all these games. You actually pinpoint where you go and then you roam throughout space wherever you want to go and you fight enemies only if you want to get close to one or there might be one at the world and you have to beat it in order to keep going. I personally wasn't a fan of that. They even brought back an old mechanic from the first game, as in designing your own ship and then putting the pieces on it. I didn't like that in Kingdom Hearts 1, and I still don't really like it. I preferred the way it was done in Kingdom Hearts 2 more as in you got the ship and you could use whatever one you wanted and then you went in a straight line and you targeted enemies and destroyed them easier. So, I preferred that system much more. Aside from that though, the rest of the mechanics are top-notch. I especially loved all the worlds you went to like the new and old worlds. I loved all that and I loved all the interactions again. That's something else Kingdom Hearts does so well. Showing the different interactions between these characters in the Disney worlds and Sora himself. And seeing him finally interacting with characters like Woody, Buzz, Sulley, Mike and all these other characters was just as awesome as I would have imagined. The personalities of these characters is perfectly realised and it's so much fun hanging out with them. Seeing Sora also be accepted by a lot of them is also really satisfying.  I loved it every time like when we meet Jack again and when we meet new characters. They even introduced a ton of other minigames too like you can actually go to Twilight Town where Uncle Scrooge has set up a bistro with Remy from Ratatouille and you can actually make different courses in the kitchen with Remy and you can make something that Sora can eat in the main menu. Not only that, but he's also given something called a Gummiphone. It's this phone that allows Sora to take photos where the characters interact with it and you can even take photos of emblems that're in the shape of King Mickey's head, which you can be rewarded for. It even has something like a social media on it where you see what he's written on it during the loading menus. Not just him but also Riku and Ienzo, A.K.A, Zexion, who's now a good guy like a lot of the other Organization members, who's helping Sora and even has a Gummiphone of his own. That was really fun. So at the end of the day, Kingdom Hearts 3 absolutely lived up to the hype. Considering how excited I was for this, which is extremely high, I'm so happy to say that it was totally worth the wait. Given how long we had to wait for it to release, I couldn't have picked a better way for this epic combination of the past 17 years to keep moving forward, and I can't wait for what comes next. And so, everyone, that was my long awaited spoiler-free review of Kingdom Hearts 3. Thank you all so much for reading, it's been great talking about this game for so long and I can't wait for more in the future. Thank you all for reading and please comment down below to tell me what you think.
Spoilers:
Okay, firstly just want to get one thing out of the way, and that's that I'm confused as to why the 100 Acre Wood as only a small world that you went to once and that was it. I liked how we went there and saw them for, maybe, the last time, but it was the same minigame three times. I still liked it though. And I even liked other small things like the return of Sora's "happy" face. Now, like I said, there's a lot to talk about when it comes to the spoilers, so this may take a while. Firstly, I loved the first part on Olympus with Sora trying to figure out what he needed to unlock the Power of Waking but not being able to. It was cool we saw Xigbar there and I liked how it was like he was giving a bit of foreshadowing. Seeing Kairi and Lea training together was a nice touch and I love seeing Kairi do more like training to be a Keyblade wielder. And I thought the first scene with them was sweet. Especially when Kairi was talking about her letters to Sora. And then later on when we see her in her new suit, that was awesome. Really, everything with Kairi here I loved a lot. I thought it was cool to see Riku get a new Keyblade, although I'm kind wondering how he got it. It's still a cool new Keyblade, and it helps show that he's really no longer part of the darkness. I thought it was nice to find out what happened to Aqua when it looked like Xehanort possessed her, and seeing her come back was extremely satisfying and a really exciting scene too. Every scene involving an old character coming back gave me goose bumps and made me really excited and hyper. And, with that, let's talk about the character returns, which was probably the stuff I was most excited for. As I said, Aqua come back was the first really exciting scene with it feeling like the story was really propelling forward fast from that moment onward. I just kept going really fast throughout the rest of the story because I was excited to see what was gonna happen next. After that, when they went to Castle Oblivion and Aqua turned it back to the Land Of Departure was also extremely exciting to me. We got to see Aqua reunite with Ven again, which was a nice moment, and then Sora freed Ven from his heart and brought him, which was just the coolest thing to see, and it was awesome to see him interact with Ven and fight Vanitas as Aqua. And then only a few minutes later, we get that scene I was talking about. That scene with Sora and Kairi that we've been waiting to see, that was when they finally had the Paopu Fruits. It was nice that we finally saw that, especially given how that's something that was setup since the first game. I honestly thought we were gonna see them kiss there. And, keeping it going, the game didn't let up once from then onward because after that, it's the epic battle that we've been waiting for against Xehanort. And yeah, it's just amazing, the act of this game is nothing but an adrenaline rush from start to finish. And now we've gotta talk about the ending. My god, we have got to talk about THAT ending. Firstly though, I thought that part where it looked like everyone died was real. I honestly felt like everyone was dead then. Definetly not Sora, but everyone else, yeah. But then during the next scene when Sora meet Chirithy and he helps him was amazing.  And then time sorta reverses and we get the scene again but this time, Sora goes to save everyone's hearts. And I loved seeing how it was Kairi who was helping him and then the two going off into the same kinda sparkles that we saw in Kingdom Hearts 1, which was really nice. And then all the Keyblades belonging to the wielders of the past show up and Sora launches them at the huge ball of darkness, which was just... I can't even describe how awesome that was. Seeing Yen Sid show up and finally doing some action was also really awesome. And then the rest of the battle is inside the maze where you're helping some friends along the way fighting the different members of the Thirteen Seekers Of Darkness. And, along the way, some really epic moments kept happening, like Xion being revealed or Roxas showing up to save her and Lea or Terra coming back or Sora just always arriving to save them. There's honestly way too many amazing moments to count. But then towards the end when you're with King Mickey and Riku fighting Young Xehanort, Ansem and Xemnas, Xehanort reveals Kairi and then kills her right in front of Sora. That scene made me lose my mind. I did not expect that at all and it made me feel the same way Sora did. And I was just as surprised when Xehanort got the X-Blade and finally unlocked Kingdom Hearts. And then everyone coming together to help Sora and then they going to that place in the trailer looked great. And then the final battle really begins with you fighting the thirteen different Xehanorts, but you really just need to defeat one and then he absorbs them all and gets a suit of armour himself. And that's where it really begins with him having the X-Blade and you finish the fight on top of the main building, which was just fantastic. And then the rest is just a ton of amazing scenes. And I love how it's actually Eraqus who saves the day and then Xehanort actually becomes a good guy, which I didn't see coming at all. And then he actually gives Sora the X-Blade, which was just so awesome and I was geeking out as that scene was going. But then at the end, Sora decides to go off and save Kairi somehow and promises to come back soon. I'm not entirely sure how he did that, but the ending of the game was so satisfying and so fulfilling as we see everyone be happy. King Mickey, Doanld, Goofy, Yen Sid, Chip, Dale and Jiminy go back to Disney Castle, Roxas, Lea, Xion, Isa, Hayner, Pence and Ollette are living in Twilight Town, Ven, Aqua and Terra make a momorial for Eraqus with his Keyblade and then they leave their Wayfinders with it and then Ven reunites with Chirithy. And even other things like Naminé coming back and then all of them go to Destiny Islands to hang out. This entire ending just floored me. The fact that everything was going so well and everyone was back and happy and playing just made it feel so satisfying. But then as it progresses, we see Sora and Kairi on the Paopu tree and it looks like they're finally about to get together and kiss, but then Sora just disappears... and that's it. It just goes straight to the credits after that... okay... what exactly just happened? What happened to Sora? Why did he disappear? Did he sacrifice himself for her again? But then, of course, there's the secret ending where it shows that Xigbar may actually be the main villain the whole time with the other masters back. And it turns out he was the guy Luxu the whole time. Which, I gotta say didn't surprise me that much consider how similar the two of them acted. So when it was finally revealed, I actually called it a little bit. He's even with four of the Foretellers aside from Ava. He might actually be trying to trick them into thinking that Sora's evil. And we even see Maleficent and Pete there which indicate that they're still gonna be involved in this. And then the second, I'm not gonna lie, I'm kinda confused about the second one. Though I have had some friends of mine help me understand. So apparently Sora's in Shibuya, as in where the characters from The World Ends With You are from. Not only that, but Riku is also in the Yazora game that Rex was talking about. So, that's really interesting. How did they get there. Some people think it might be an alternate reality and some people say it involves the same kinda time travel thing that was in Dream Drop Distance. So, I'm really interested to know what's going on. Maybe the next game will begin with Sora meeting up with everyone there that he knew from Dream Drop Distance and some people even think that the next game could also include having to save Sora while also having to defeat Xigbar, which sounds like a cool idea. I gotta admit, as much as I love Kingdom Hearts and it's my favourite story of all time and my favourite piece of entertainment, I think I would really love if they just made one last game to finish tying up all the loose ends. And it would be able to help make sure Sora gets back and gets a true happy ending, including him and Kairi finally getting together and no more of them getting separated. Every story needs and end and this would be a great way to finish up my favourite story of all time. That would honestly make me incredible satisfied as one of the biggest fans of this series. And so, everyone, that was my spoiler review for Kingdom Hearts 3. Thank you all so much for reading, I had a great time talking about this and I can't believe the fact that it finally happened. After all these years, we finally got Kingdom Hearts 3 and I can't wait for the next one to hopefully wrap everything up once and for all. Thank you all for reading, please comment down below to tell me what you think or please tell me what you thought of the game.