My issues with KH3

[Unusual1290]

So now that I’ve had time to process and lose the delusion that KH3 is not as perfect as I believed it to be the first couple months after it’s release, here are my issues/complaints about the game, both story wise and gameplay wise. Don’t get me wrong, I still think it’s a fantastic game, and the good still definitely outweighs the bad for me.



STORY

1. Mickey and Riku’s new Keyblades having no significant story explanation was really dumb. Plus how did they even get those Keyblades? Unless a Keyblade is passed down or taken from another wielder (or found like KKD), aren’t Keyblades supposed to be created from the wielder’s heart? So does Yen Sid just have all these extra Keyblades shoved in a bag somewhere? (Plus, why didn’t Mickey just use Star Seeker? He obviously still had it because he used it in coded.)
2. The Kingdom Key D was too important I felt for it to just be abandoned. The thing I really enjoyed about Mickey is that he sought out this Keyblade in the Realm of Darkness (making it uniquely a Keyblade of the Dark, plus the only known Keyblade of Darkness besides No Name) and that he used it to fight for Light. It made his character and how he wields his power so interestingly and that’s what bonded him and Riku. Now him just having another Keyblade of Light like everyone else makes him basic.
3. The Chambers of Repose and Waking were not touched upon AT ALL. KH2FM and BBS made these rooms seem super important. Yeah, we technically revisited the CoW to reawaken Ven, but there was no mention of the CoR and how both of them are connected. Obviously it was an important place to Xemnas and it contains Aqua’s armor and Keyblade within it. It would’ve been so easy for the story to have Dilan and Eleaus go to this room while Ienzo worked on recovering Roxas and Namine. They know where it is, at least Even and Ienzo do. Plus, since Aqua put the Master Keeper on Eraqus’ memorial, wtf is she gonna wield now? Oh yeah, I forgot. Yen Sid can just pull Keyblades out of his ass for everyone.
4. Why did we not get any explanation for how Lea came to be a Keyblade wielder? Even if it was something as simple as Yen Sid performing the Inheritance Ceremony on him during DDD, it still should’ve been told. We shouldn’t have to leave something important like this to speculation.
5. Also, if Xemnas destroyed Lea’s Keyblade, how in the hell did it just appear in his hands later on? Did he run to Yen Sid in the Badlands after that to see what his magic Santa Claus bag full o’ keys had?
6. I would’ve like to see Merlin play a role in Kairi and Lea’s training sequences. The fact that he just appeared to show Sora Pooh’s book was dumb. This is something minor and unimportant, but I still would have liked to see that.
7. I know it is going to explain more about how Xion returned in Re:Mind, which is obviously thanks to Vexen, but I swear, if it doesn’t explain HOW they came to remember her, I will be SO irritated.
8. Sora knows he needs to thank Namine, but we’ve never seen him question WHY he needs to thank her. I was hoping that once they arrived to Castle Oblivion before Aqua restored it to Land of a Departure, flashes of Sora, Donald, and Goofy’s memory of their time there would surface. As Namine said, memories can’t be destroyed, they’re just rearranged and some hidden deep within the heart. So those memories are still there. Sora even said they would still be there at the end of CoM before going to sleep.
9. Ansem, Xemnas, YX, and Terranort were from different periods of time. Terranort and Ansem both had the Guardian. Soooo did they just share it? Also, if Terranort is from another timeline, wouldn’t that make Terra from another timeline? Or was the Guardian just waiting in the RoD for his/Ansem’s return? Again, this shouldn’t be something left to speculation.
10. WTF is the significance of that damn Darkling on the cover?! Some people say that Aqua may have become a Darkling, but again, this is just speculation. The star it’s holding may represent the Nameless Star, so did SHE become a Darkling?

GAMEPLAY

1. I was disappointed in the lack of abilities compared to KH2. KH2 just seemed so much more customizable with abilities because there were lots to choose from. There didn’t seem to be that many in KH3 and the amount of AP you gained throughout the game was extremely massive that you could pretty much equip all of them long before reaching level 99 and not even needing to use AP Ups. I’m hoping Re:Mind includes some new ones.
2. No dropped weapons for Donald and Goofy kinda made me sad. Part of the fun of the replay value in KH1 and 2 was spending hours fighting certain Heartless over and over hoping they’d drop these.
3. Not to mention, obtaining items for synthesis was wayyyyyyy too easy compared to 1 and 2 in my opinion.
4. NO. COLISEUM. IN. OLYMPUS.
5. No Nobody for Vexen was a little disappointing. And the Dancer Nobodies (as annoying as they were) not appearing was as well.
6. Some of those Flan minigames were not tested well enough. But we all know that lol
7. Dark Baymax’s boss battle was crap. It was too easy. There should’ve been a normal ground battle after the sky battle.
8. The Pirate Ship was just not fun. The only time I enjoyed it was during the boss battle with the Kraken. The race with Luxord and the battle before reaching Shipwreck Cove were completely dreadful. The controls are garbage.
9. The battle with the giant wave of Heartless, Nobodies, and Unversed should’ve been made longer. On the scale of the 1000 Heartless battle (though not quite as easy.)
10. I would’ve liked to battle a colossal form of Xehanort after his armored form and before the final battle. This is something I can live without and not necessarily a complaint, it just would’ve been cool to have since both Ansem and Xemnas had a battle like this.

 

[Veevee]

You make a lot of good points and some of them can be summarized into general problems, for example the problem with Riku and Mickey and their keyblades. It just breaks the immersion for ... basically nothing. Never has been talk in the series about keyblades breaking, no matter what the circumstances, and now they are breaking right and left and are just being replaced by "stronger ones". It's ridiculous and reduces keyblades from magical weapons shaped and formed by the strength and constitution of your heart to throwaway toys that can simply be replaced by betters ones or resummoned. Speaking of this, I didn't understand why Lea's keyblade is a sham - I got it with Xion since she can be called a sham, I guess, but Lea's keyblade? I don't get it.

A lot of plot points that were important once have been abondoned. That is not bad per se - I didn't miss Chamber of Repose / Chamber of Waking talk because it would've been really clunky to include more of that in the story. But in general, things like Kairi's training, the importance of the Seven Wielders or the saving of some people have been tremendously overhyped in the previous because either nothing is done with that or it just happens and checked of the list.
Also, the game sometimes feels like nothing happens. It's not that nothing happens - it's that it just doesn't have much consequence. The whole Dark Aqua arc teaches us nothing, doesn't bring us forward (we would've saved her anyway, the process was just stalled this way) and is so suddenly and randomly solved (oh, we didn't need someone who knows Aqua well after all, surprise), so it basically feels like it kept you on the edge but didn't add to the plot. It's like an anime filler episode where the characters have an adventure with someone they will surely never meet again - the episode is fine in itself, but since it's filler you don't gain anything from it and if you haven't seen it, you missed nothing.

I never understood where the different seekers were from and the Riku / Repliku / Data-Riku? / other Repliku part lost me completely. Nooo, it didn't suffice to bring back, one obviously has sat in Riku's body unnoticed for several games and conveniently makes note of himself now and suddenly there's so many Rikus this one has to kill himself for no reason but that.

I agree on the Gameplay part .. I mean it looks gorgeous and was an interesting concept, but I found too many of these special battles just not fun. Baymax was a chore. Pirate ship first fight took so long for me and the final boss fight was kinda boring and since I understood nothing of the story, I wasn't invested at all. There was so much different stuff crammed into the games and I hardly used any of it - I hated the attractions and only used them when I needed to cheese through, never liked the Dream Eaters, ignored the summons .. and a lot of the keyblade transformations had such a poor camera angle that I couldn't see anything.

Also, the story: For future KH games I'd wish they could present the story in a way that someone who hasn't seen the movies (or at least, not recently) understands what's going on. I was SO confused with Rapunzel's story and even my friend who sat beside me and explained what was supposed to be going on, ultimately ended up at a loss.

In summary, I feel that what dragged down KH3 most was the focus on coolness and wanting to include everything. It's a huge spectacle that has its moments, but ultimately lacks focus in the most interesting parts (or feels rushed) and some plot points are simply not explainable (Lea's keyblade), so it feels rather shallow in the end. The beginning is quite gripping though, but doesn't live up to its premise.

 

[okhi12]

About Riku's Braveheart keyblade I don't know but images from the KH3 ultimania book suggest that the Kingdom Key W (Mickey's new keyblade) was created as a combination of Kingdom Key D and Star Seeker. By the looks of that keyblade it is obvious but how keyblades can be actually fused hasn't been explained... Most likely with the help of moogles because they can reforge Sora's keyblades adding materials to strenghthen them. It should be a similar procedure. I'm still waiting for an official explanation, too.

How Lea recovered his keyblade after Xemnas broke it is a mystery now but I suppose it will be addressed in re:mind because Lea said they had 'a couple plot points that needed ironing out' when he reappeared with the intact keyblade. If that is not a hint about re:mind then it is just lazy or inconsistent writing... which is becoming a major issue in KH3.

I agree that the chamber of waking and repose were really underdeveloped plot points after they built so much hype around them. Now that the Land of Departure was restored without even entering Castle Oblivion we won't probably see the chamber of waking again, but I haven't lost hope with the chamber of repose because the underground cells of Radiant Garden castle are important in the story of Subject X and we may visit the place in the future... if Radiant Garden is not given the KH3 treatment again.

About the rest of the issues with the plot you mentioned, I think the same and I have nothing to say.

Oh, and the lack of dropped weapons for Donald and Goofy really REALLY disappointed me. It is a minor thing but I absolutely loved the dropped weapons from KH1 and 2 even if I had to farm for hours in order to get them.

 

[Sign]

Darklings are born when Keyblade wielders fully succumb to the darkness and lose all sense of self. Aqua seemed to be about halfway there, but as you said, it's just speculation. Why this matter wasn't addressed in any interviews, I have no idea. In any case, the Nameless Star doesn't match that description since she was murdered.

How Lea recovered his keyblade after Xemnas broke it is a mystery now but I suppose it will be addressed in re:mind because Lea said they had 'a couple plot points that needed ironing out' when he reappeared with the intact keyblade. If that is not a hint about re:mind then it is just lazy or inconsistent writing... which is becoming a major issue in KH3.

That line came across as an excuse to get away with no big hullabaloo when the protagonists reconvene, like how Ven and Roxas didn't react at all when they saw each other. Ven got the phone with cliffnotes and Lea just explained things to Roxas.

 

[2 quid is good]

In summary, I feel that what dragged down KH3 most was the focus on coolness and wanting to include everything. It's a huge spectacle that has its moments, but ultimately lacks focus in the most interesting parts (or feels rushed) and some plot points are simply not explainable (Lea's keyblade), so it feels rather shallow in the end. The beginning is quite gripping though, but doesn't live up to its premise.

This is probably the most succinct way of describing KH3, and I also agree that the beginning is probably the best part of the game

 

[Veevee]

This is probably the most succinct way of describing KH3, and I also agree that the beginning is probably the best part of the game

It really is. You are hyped and the game promises another big adventure and it looks like we have a plan this time. Sora is weak? Let's go visit Hercules and look for clues about Roxas afterwards. Riku and Mickey will do their thing, deducted that Aqua is the key to not only herself, but also Terra and Ventus and made her top priority. You have an urgent sense of threat because Xehanort might go for the princesses if you don't hurry. And people actually talk about their thoughts, even in a clunky way, so we can finally make sure they are on the same page for once. Dialogue didn't seem as bad as before, at least that's what I felt when I thought the Twilight gang actually sounded like human kids for once.

What followed was Toy Story, lol.