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Hello hello, and welcome to the 7th Installment of A Month of Keys: Oh God why is this still a thing, is it over yet?!

So let's get to it!



Kingdom Hearts 3, also known as the conclusion to the Xehanort Saga.  I remember when this game was formally announced back in 2013 with a proto trailer, some time after Dream Drop Distance was out.  What's funny is that I remember around the time DDD was announced, Square had all but formally confirmed that 3 was in the works (so roughly in 2010, since DDD was announced shortly after Birth By Sleep proved to be a big hit).

But even after its formal announcement in 2013, it suddenly went silent after that original trailer.  The team was working on Final Fantasy XIII versus before it shifted to FFXV as well as the Final Fantasy VII remake, and Kingdom Hearts III was put on the back burner.

Cut to roughly 2015, and we got our first official trailer showing off the game.  From then on we got confirmation of 2 of the worlds in the game, and got second trailer 2 years later.  After that point, we were given at least one trailer a year until the game's official release as well as a buttload of info to get people hyped.  Was the hype worth it?

Ehhhh...yes and no.  First off, the game had some bumps here and there, and for the most part it really doesn't show.  The story is still for the most part solid, the worlds for the most part are exciting, and overall it's for the most part a decent game.  However, those bumps did take away from the experience a bit, and even the DLC only helped it mildly when looking at some of those bumps.  So let's get into what the goods and bads of KH3 are, shall we?  And if you're not a fan of spoilers since this is still a somewhat recent game, I will caution you ahead of time: I'll try to keep it spoiler free, but I may get into some from time to time.

Story
I'm sure you're used to it now, but before we begin...let's talk about that reeeeeaally awesome intro which is possibly my favorite out of all of them.  So, like every other intro it summarizes the events of previous games leading up to this one in its own unique way.  This game's way? Fucking chess.  I'm sorry, but that's just brilliant imaging that everything KH is just one big chess game.  I love it because chess in many times is used as a metaphor almost to a cliche degree, but this is the first time really seeing a game show the fuck up events as it's because the right piece was put down.  If you were to tell me at this point that Kingdom Hearts itself was in reality one big chess game played between Young Xehanort and Young Eraqus and none of the events happened in the reality of the game, I'd honestly believe it.

So as you'd expect, Kingdom Hearts 3 is supposed to be the grand conclusion to all of that buildup from the previous games.  Organization XIII is seeking the new Princesses of Heart while also gathering their numbers while you go through the game seeking your own numbers for the fated clash of 7 lights versus 13 darknesses.  As Sora, Donald, and Goofy...you make your way through new worlds in an attempt to regain your power that you lost in Dream Drop Distance so that you can bring back the lost keyblade wielders to help you in your fight.  But will you regain those powers and free those trapped to help you in your fight?  Will you defeat Master Xehanort once and for all and stop his plans from succeeding?

Now, already I was a bit lost when it came to the story.  No, I don't mean it was confusing, I meant more that it seemed almost like a pointless filler quest before the battle.  As I mentioned, Sora lost his power of Waking after the events of Dream Drop Distance, and his whole quest throughout most of the game is getting that back.  Yeah, it's not about saving the lost people for 90% of the game or building up to the final clash...if anything that's almost treated like a side story to Sora going to different worlds, learning some life lessons, and discovering how to regain his power of waking.

Spoiler

And if you guessed "He never lost it, it was within him all along and he just had to realize that"...you win a cookie! All of the world traveling was pointless filler just for him to realize that he still had the power within him all along...and the journey was to help him realize that.

Granted, each world has an encounter with one of the different Organization members, but by god is it pointless chatter most of the time.  They're either there just to mock Sora or...actually no, they're basically just there to mock Sora.  It's not like Dream Drop Distance where the random encounters actually had some merit because you were learning about Master Xehanort's plans from them, this was actually a somewhat lighter version of them basically telling us what we already knew and pointing and laughing at Sora for not getting it.

Now, I'll admit that when you finish a world, you do get some main plot exposition.  As you're going around aimlessly learning KH3's new hammered in life lessons (because every KH game has that underlying theme it has to hammer home...did I not mention that in previous reviews?), you also get a small snippet of what other characters are up to.  Whenever you finish the last world in one of the different galaxies/solar systems, you get a decent chunk of main plot exposition...again from other characters doing stuff while Sora is world hopping.

But that's also part of the problem.  It's not Sora himself going through all of that exposition, it's other characters.  Only when you're near the final areas does Sora actually do something that pushes the actual plot forward as opposed to other characters doing it.  And before you ask, aside from two moments I can think of, you don't get to control the other characters in these situations.

Spoiler

In those two moments: One is as Riku when you and Mickey fight a Demon Tower in an attempt to save Aqua from the Dark World.  The other is as Aqua when you fight Vanitas as you and Sora and the gang are attempting to save Ventus.

So it's just really bothersome that you have a plot that involves the main character, but everyone else except the main character is doing something about it at first because the main character has to do some side shit that, in the end, was mostly pointless anyways.

On top of all of that, some of the worlds themselves were far confusing even in their own stories, or just downright uncreative.

First off, I'll give props to the fact that Toy Story's story is officially canon to the franchise as to taking place between Toy Story 2 and 3.  Like, that's cool that Kingdom Hearts is officially canon to the TS universe now.

That being said, many of the world stories were underwhelming.  While worlds like Corona and Big Hero 6 did well with their stories, ones like Toybox, Monstropolis, and even The Carribean suffered a bit for various reasons. 

Spoiler

In Toybox's case: Much like Dream Drop Distance did a "Two Taverse Towns" thing where neither were even the real thing, Toybox went the "Identical Universe" route to explain why there were no actual people there...which just made little sense.  Why make parallel world where some (but not all) toys are pulled to just to understand how they work?  Couldn't that have been done in the main universe?  Wouldn't it have been just as easy to explore an empty store at night in the main universe or something?  That just seemed like a pretty extreme way to do it just to explain why it's empty.

In Monstropolis' case: The story was basically Randall comes in wanting things like the old days, and doing whatever it took to get there.  It's never explained why Monstropolis again is basically empty except for the CDC-type monsters that appear at one point, and it felt like some terrible rushed sequel writing that resulted in a tired, boring story for what could have been (and in ways was an alright) world to explore.

In The Carribean's Case: The story basically borrowed from At World's End, but also butchered it.  You're introduced with a beginning scene from the movie leading up to them leaving Davy Jones' locker, and an ending battle and cutscene straight from the movie as well.  Now, granted that ending battle bit was phenomenal, but the middle is where it bothered me.  Rather than really taking the time to integrate the movie events into the game, it instead went "Oh by the way, you're doing something separate from the movie, but the Jack Sparrow that was following you wasn't real the entire time because the real one is still doing the movie stuff."  Like...really? We went that route?

However, the worst offender was Arendelle.  Not only was there very little going on story wise, but the entirety of Let it Go as well as Do You Want to Build a Snowman (followed by movie exposition being told ON TOP OF THE SONG) was thrown into the world.  You'd basically have to watch the movie with this one to get what was happening, because the game doesn't really go into horrible detail.  On top of that, you can tell that this wasn't the original idea because of just how haphazardly it was put together.  The rumor is that the original idea had Elsa choose the darkness and succumb to it, doing questionable things and basically becoming evil until she finally realizes what she's doing.  The heartless you fight at the end? That was supposed to be her fears, insecurities, and overall darkness given form.  The labyrinth that Larxene traps you in? It was originally supposed to be Elsa's Ice Palace when she succumbs to the darkness.  In fact, the idea of Elsa going dark was supposedly supposed to be the original idea for the movie as well before the writers were shut down (because they didn't want their precious character going dark since it gave a "bad impression).  Since the KH writers were working on Arendelle for KH3 since even before Frozen came out, they had to change gears much later when they were also told by Disney they weren't allowed to go that route. So the result is an obvious watered down, questionable world where Larxene tells you cryptic things ("Will she choose light or darkness?") that lead absolutely nowhere.

On top of that, the plot goes from going slowly with small snippets to "WHOA SLOW THE FUCK DOWN" when you get near the end, because as soon as you finish your aimless world traveling the game is almost like "Oh yeah, there's the whole Xehanort thing..." and throws the plot at Sora at a super quick pace.  What could have been branched out along the entire game is now all tossed at you in a singular moment.

Spoiler

Yeah, you know how the games have been building up this big importance of saving Aqua and Ventus, and even Terra?  Remember how you probably thought "Oh saving Terra will be difficult since he's possessed by Xehanort and they'll probably do it at the end?

Haha...that's cute.

In reality, aside from a couple of cutscenes that show what actually happens to Aqua, it goes like this:

1) Sora after his last world visit says "Screw all of this!" and goes to the realm of Darkness to save Aqua.
2) Sora and the rest of the trio as well as Aqua go to Castle Oblivion, change it back to the Land of Departure, make it to the main area where Ventus is sitting in a chair, fight Vanitas, and wake up Ventus.

And I'll make it known that this is all done in the same sitting.  It's not a battle to get there, you aren't exploring and making your way to those places...it's literally Cutscenes > Fight Aqua > Cutscenes > "Explore" Land of Departure (by walking forward a screen!) Fight Vanitas > Cutscenes  And by the end of that cutscene, Aqua and and Ventus are already saved in such a short amount of time compared to branching it out a bit (like having Sora exploring the world of Darkness to find Aqua and save her, and getting to the LoD only for Xehanort to steal away Ventus before they can save him...you know, things like that).

Terra, it's about as haphazard.  After the events in the Keyblade Graveyard, you're "pitted" against the different versions of Xehanort, usually fighting 3 at a time.  After the final fight with Terranort, it basically only takes Ventus saying "Terra, I kept my promise" and suddenly he's able to be saved.  Granted, the way he reverts back is actually really cool (Dark Guardian is basically Terra realistically, he projects his heart into Terranort, and that along with the keyblade light puts it back into place while kicking Xehanort's out)...but I was still really hoping that it'd be much closer to the end.

Aaaand on top of all of THAT, saving them did nothing anyways.  All they do is shoot light at Kingdom Hearts while once again Sora does all the work and is the one fighting Master Xehanort.  The only real fighting they did was in the DLC which was iffy all around anyways (Well, Ventus and Aqua "fight" in Terranort and friends battle, but they don't help you out in the actual fight...but they do fight in the DLC version

So yeah...the story was okay, but it had problems.  The biggest being why the flip it had Sora doing all of this side stuff when the game could have easily centered around the plot while still having Sora at the forefront.  Hell, it could have exclusively been about saving the new 7 Princesses of light...but even that felt like an unfinished idea that really went nowhere.

Spoiler

Oh, and before you ask...no we still don't know what is in the mysterious box that has been hinted at before.  And the game makes it a point to show you that Maleficent is hell bent on figuring that out, even though we never do.

I will, however, give credit to this Kingdom Hearts being the second to do something I didn't expect (Birth by Sleep being the first).

Spoiler

Mainly, Xehanort killing Kairi right there.  That was pretty far out of left field in a way, and set up for a great story for the DLC since we see that she's somehow back at the end.  The way they explained it in the DLC though was pretty hit/miss...but I did like how fan-favorite characters like Aerith and Cid were brought back for that small moment to service the DLC story.

I also really loved the secret ending story with Yozora, and how it mimicked the original idea for FFXIII Versus.

So let's move on.

Gameplay

So overall, the gameplay that you saw in Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep 0.2 and KH2 makes a return here...with some questionable additions.

First off, everything you had in KH3 makes a reappearance once you've made it to a certain part of the first world.  Shotlocks, Flowmotion, Form Changes, all of them are re-introduced to you very early on as well as new things such as Wall Running, Keyblade forms, and Attractions.

Now Wall Running is actually pretty neat, because like BBS 0.2, it gives much more height to the worlds since you can run up certain walls to a higher area.  You can also run across if you have to run over something like lava (this only happens once, so was pointless on that one).

Keyblades now have secondary, and even 3rd forms they can hit.  Yeah, remember when in KH BBS and BBS 0.2, it was just different attack styles?  Well, Kingdom Hearts 3 went further and made your keyblades (for the most part aside from like 3) completely change form.

Take the Favorite Deputy keyblade for example (the one found in Toybox).  If you hit enemies enough times, you'll get the option (seen above your command list) for the Command "Hyper Hammer" to appear.  Press triangle, and your keyblade will change into a big honkin hammer for a period of time.  Hit enough enemies times and you'll get another command for "Drill Punch."  Press triangle on that command, and your hammer will turn into a set of drill arms.   Keep hitting enemies until you get bored and press triangle once again (or just have an Auto-finisher ability equipped), and you'll do some kind of finisher attack on them for added damage.

Most keyblades will have multiple forms like that.  Some will have all melee forms, some will have lance/spear forms, some will have dual crossbow forms, and so on.  It's actually quite a nice change up since it makes you second guess having a specific keyblade whether or not it has a higher strength and magic factor.

On top of that, Keyblades can also be upgraded. Yeah, remember how in Coded you could get +1 and higher versions of gear?  That upgrade mechanic has appeared once again, only in a bit more of a refined way.  Synthesis from KH 1 and 2 are back once more and you can still find recipes as well as craft various items with the ingredients you find.  However, you can also choose to upgrade your keyblades as well, making them stronger/better with magic as well as giving them added abilities when equipped.  As you'd expect, the ingredients change with every upgrade...with the items becoming more "later in the game" types the higher the level (and every keyblade has 10).  Thankfully though, some of the biggest ingredients can be farmed simply by going out on your gummi ship and farming the asteroids in each galaxy.

On the flipside of additions, you have the new additional type of summons known as Attraction Flow.

If you ever saw early trailers of Kingdom Hearts 3 where Sora was riding on a lit train, or riding a Merry-Go-Round...that is attraction Flow.  At random points in time you'll see a sort of meter appear on an enemy (similar to the Reality Shift in Dream Drop Distance).  Kill that enemy, and you'll get the option above your command list (identical to Keyblade form changes and finishers) with the name of the attraction, whether it be Carousal, Mad Tea Cups, or any of the others (the exception being Train, which I recall being used only once on a boss...maybe twice).

These...are absolutely pointless after a certain point in the game.  At first ones like Pirate Ship are great because they do decide damage and knock back the enemy, but they're only fun when you're learning about them.  After a certain point they become both useless and downright annoying since you can accidentally trigger them outside of battle if they're still on your command list...and that means even if you're hitting triangle to open a chest, only to find yourself summoning the pirate ship.

Magic is back to the old way that you might remember from KH2, and using magic can even throw in a magic-finisher command for a higher version of that spell (and some keyblade finisher commands can do it as well).  Summons are also back, but much like KH1 and 2 they're mostly useless when you have a powerful keyblade and magic...though admittedly some of them like Wreck it Ralph are fun to play around with for a bit.  There's 5 total in this game, and all except Wreck it Ralph are in some way familiar in the franchise.

Now, the worlds themselves for the most part have been greatly improved on.  Worlds like Olympus are now phenomenally bigger, but also completely different.  Whereas in KH1 that area was Olympus Colosseum and in KH2 it was mostly the Underworld...KH3 lets you explore the city of Thebes, the entirety of Mount Olympus, as well as Olympus itself (minus the Colosseum).  Other worlds are like that as well, giving you so much to explore in various ways (Tangled is just overall large letting you explore the forest, dark forest, and city, Big Hero 6 gives you a nice chunk of San Frantokyo, The Carribean lets you explore various islands as well as the large surrounding ocean in which you can swim through for even more added depth, etc).

But...there were also problem areas.  Monstropolis for example never really leaves the Factory, and it was admittedly a bit tedious that your whole world exploration was literally just different parts of that when there's a whole city of monsters.  Arendelle was arguably the worst though, having you explore the mountains most of the time.  You never get to explore the city of Arendelle before or after the events, nor do you get to explore Elsa's Ice Palace.  You do get a neat little area known as the Ice Labyrinth to explore...but because it really serves no purpose outside of just escaping it, it becomes a little forgettable (and very out of place).

Spoiler

Part of what adds insult to injury to Arendelle is that you'll make it to the top roughly 2 times before "event happens that pushes you down the mountain" so you have to climb back up, giving the world the illusion that it's big because it's making you repeat your journey up a couple of times.

However, the biggest atrocities in worlds were arguably 100 Acre Woods and Twilight Town.  Yes, that's right, both of them made returns again, and I'll assume 100 Acre Woods was only brought back because it's been in every numbered entry as well as had a cameo in the prequel.

But Twilight Town is remarkably shrunk down compared to its KH2 counterpart.  The main area was already a decent size for an empty hub area...but you're given that, sewers leading to the forest behind the mansion, the forest behind the mansion, and the mansion exterior.  Areas such as the Clock Tower, Struggle arena, Hayner and Crew's hideout, and Sunset Terrace (the secondary part you can get to by train in KH2) are all completely inaccessible...though if you can get high enough, you can see the rest of Twilight Town that you wish you would have gotten to explore.

Now...I will give credit on something, mainly when it comes to areas like Twilight Town, Olympus (when coming back after completing it), Corona (when it comes to the city part), San Fransokyo, and even parts of the Carribean.  Remember how I mentioned in previous reviews that Kingdom Hearts has always suffered "Empty World Syndrome?"  Well, Kingdom Hearts 3 actually finally fixed that in parts.  San Fransokyo during the day (since you can choose to explore either during day or night) is packed with people.  The city of Corona is bustling with activity, there are actually people populating the village in the Carribean, Twilight Town actually has a lot of people, and even the town of Thebes in Olympus looks like it actually has a good amount of people once you revisit after you've completed it.

While it's not perfect (again, Toybox's explanation still bothered me, and we don't get to visit Arendelle the town while exploring the Arendelle world), it's definitely much more of an improvement.

I mentioned Twilight Town as an atrocity though, and I did mean it. While it did serve some purpose story wise, it was largely a useless world outside of being a mini game hub.  But again, even then it was so closed off compared to even KH2 that I was actually pretty disappointed since the game had been working on expanding the worlds...so restricting one seemed a bit unusual.

On top of that, the mini games were "Ehhh" for the most part.  Remember how I called 100 Acre Woods a similar atrocity?  That's because it's a completely watered down version of the world thrown into KH3 because fans probably wanted it since it was in the other main titles.

And boy does it show.  I won't comment on the graphics part in here (since this is gameplay), but let me start with this:

>The Story of 100 Acre Woods in KH2 was about finding Pooh's friends, because they were lost when the pages were ripped out of the book.  It also creates the initial bond between Sora and Pooh.

>The Story in KH2 was how Pooh had suddenly forgotten about all of his friends (including Sora) when the pages were violently ripped once again when Sora was inside.  The quest was about helping Pooh remember his friends and strengthening the bond with him and Sora.

>The story in KH3 is about planting things in Rabbit's garden.  No, that's it.

And again, boy does it show.  Rather than it being a progressive process like the other games (barring CoM), 100 Acre Woods can be done in one sitting.  This is because A) you don't have to search for any pages, and B) The mini games are all the same and in the same area.  Yeah...remember in KH1 and 2 when you explored different areas whenever got put in a new page?  Well in this game, it's all done at Rabbit's House.  Yeah... not even Pooh's house. 

And hey, remember how all of the mini games were different with one being swinging Pooh and seeing how far he'd go, or helping him fly up the tree for honey, or helping his friends patrol a dark and scary cavern to find Pooh Bear?  Well in this game, that's not the case.  In KH3, all of the mini games are just some variation of those color-matching games where you shoot an object, and your goal is to fire it and match it with a set of identical looking objects to make them disappear (well in this case go into a basket).  While the object itself varies and the person helping you with an occasional skill differs in what they do...the game and goal are still inherently the same.  And when you complete one, the next becomes automatically available (and there are 4).  This can all be done in a mere 10 minutes, making this a very pointless world that leaves much less of an impression than it normally did.

There's also a cooking mini game, where you gather various cooking ingredients (which you'll hear about almost sickeningly often) and perform different cooking mini games to get different dishes that give you different boosts.  The mini game types are: cracking an egg carefully, shaking pepper just enough, cutting the food precise enough, and pouring just enough juice/oil (whatever it is) to cook the food without burning it.  Each one gives you an indicator of the perfect point to stop/finish for a perfect score, but ones such as cracking the egg and pouring the juice/cooking oil can be annoying with how precise they have to be and how easy it is to net a bad result.

Worlds like Arendelle also have their own mini games, such as sledding down the mountain and gathering all the treasures, or partaking in a Flan Heartless challenge (which varies depending on which world they're in).  Mini games like this can be a bit more difficult, but they're necessary to net Orichalcum + which is required to build the Ultma Keyblade.

Finally in mini game territory, there's old Game & Watch style mini games that you can play once you've found the game in a chest or around Twilight Town.  There are 23 of these little mini games scattered throughout KH3, and getting all of them will earn you a new keyblade...while getting the high score on all of them will get you a trophy (it should also be mentioned that the Mobile game has a few of these playable, and if you were to beat the high score in all of them before KH3 was released, it would have netted you a new keyblade upon starting it).

Lastly, I also want to talk about an important mechanic in the numbered titles but absent in every other title: Gummi Ship travel.  Yes, Gummi Ships are back, and once again they've been improved on mixing together the best parts of KH1 and the best of 2.  In other words, all world travel until you've visited a world once is done by Gummi ship...but it's completely free exploration.  When choosing a point on the map, your ship will start off either leaving the world you were just in, or in the starting terminal area (or if you unlocked multiple ones, then whichever one you pick).  You'll be able to fly any and all directions, though naturally there is height limit both up and down, and there is a limit of how far you can travel before your ship auto reverses.

At the same time though, the different galaxies are still pretty big to explore.  Enemies will be shown via a Heartless symbol with a number of stars below it.  Naturally, stars indicate how difficult a fight will be with 1 being easy, 4 being usually reserved for boss encounters (which there are a couple to be found in each solar system/galaxy).  Battles take place the KH2 way, the rail shooting style where you can move up, down, left, and right and fire at all enemies.  Only difference aside from the colossal bosses is that you don't actually move across different areas...you're mainly in one place while the different enemies appear.  Overall though, enemies are a cinch, especially when you start getting different blueprints.  The only exception is bosses (especially Omega versions of the boss as well as the hidden super boss), since they can be pretty difficult at points if your ship isn't good.

Not to mention, some boss encounters will happen automatically when you attempt to visit a specific world for the first time, so having a decent ship is usually necessary.

There are also various crystals scattered throughout each of the galaxies.  Each galaxy has a set number of purple crystals, that when broken will give you a piece of a blueprint.  Get all of the crystals in a galaxy, and you'll unlock a new ship blueprint.  Once you've destroyed a purple crystal, it'll come back in later explorations as blue...which will mainly just give you some type of part for your ship.  On top of that, there's also many...MANY asteroids that you can destroy to farm ingredients for upgrading your keyblade or synthesizing items.

Finally, there's Photo Mode.  Early in the game beyond the first world, you'll get a Gummi Phone which is basically just a digital file storage like Jiminy's Journal.  But on top of that, you can use it to take pictures of anything and everything, which translates into different quest types.  World wise, you can take pictures of certain things the moogles ask for to net some kind of reward.  Likewise, you can find Mickey Mouse symbols (known as Lucky Emblems) scattered throughout all of the worlds in the most random of places, and if you take pictures of those you'll get items for every certain number you've captured, you'll get rewards.  Likewise, if you take pictures of all of them, you'll net an achievement as well as an item which greatly boosts MP regeneration as well as lets you seamlessly string magic combos.  On top of this, you need to find a specific number of Lucky Emblems to get an Orichalcum + for the Ultima Keyblade...and a set number of Lucky Emblems is required to be found to unlock the secret ending.

Outside of the worlds, there are various constellations scattered about in each of the different galaxies.  Take a picture of one, and you'll earn a new blueprint based on that constellation.  It's actually a great way to get some powerful ships exceptionally early to give you more of an edge in battle.

Other than that, there's probably a lot I can talk about.  Things I will say is that before you ask:

*Yes, Companion characters are back (and no it isn't dream eaters).  They level up with you, and you don't have to switch out characters to have them in your party: Your party will always be Sora, Donald, Goofy, and whoever your companion characters are (sometimes it's one person, sometimes it's two).

Spoiler

And no, Elsa is not your companion character in Arendelle.  Instead you get Snowball, her big guardian monster when you're near the end of beating that world.  Likewise, yes...you get both Flynn and Rapunzel for Corona, but the moment you get past the point in the story where Rapunzel cuts her hair, she's out of your party forever even in revisits.

*Yes, you do get to play as other characters in the DLC, but don't get giddy.

Spoiler

You get to play as Ventus for an "expanded" version of the Keyblade Graveyard battle that only repeats it in the DLC...it doesn't revamp the OG game one.  Likewise, you get the choice as battling as either Sora or Riku for one of the fights.

Finally, in one of the new battles you get a choice between using Sora or Kairi for that one fight, though Kairi is also completely useless to use.  So...whoop de doo, we got "more playable characters." <_<  But to give the DLC credit, I did enjoy going through a much more expanded Scala Ad Caldeum.

Graphics
Boy...I remember being really excited seeing how Birth By Sleep 0.2 looked, only to...I guess a little less excited when it showed any of the cutscenes with anyone else.

That's...still somewhat my experience here, but it grows on you a bit with time, thankfully.

First off, I did like the upgrade overall.  For the most part everything looks great, characters look phenomenal (especially all of the Pixar/Disney Animated Studio characters), and there was even much less "yikes" with the Pirates of the Carribean characters (though there were still moments).  Toy Story and The Carribean were possibly my two favorites, looks  wise.  Toy Story because they made something as simple as a Galaxy Mall seem incredibly massive since you're going in there as a toy, and despite it being empty since there were no people, it was still a wonderful sight.  Likewise, the Carribean was just overall beautiful both on land and underwater, which you could seamlessly transition to at any point in time.

And that's another comment I want to give in favor of the upgrade: Worlds are not only greatly expanded on, but the areas themselves before you have to switch between them are equally expanded.  Mount Olympus for example has you at the base, and you can scale almost completely up the mountain and view the various areas within in along the way before, oh, new area that you have to 1-second load into (and even then, part of the mountain is an event area, so they had to do a transition bit between them).  Toy Box lets you explore the entirety of the mall for the most part without making you endure a loading screen, areas like San Fransokyo, the Carribean, and Corona are either almost completely open with what you're given, or the transition areas are minimal.

Now, that also means that going into the world will present you with a loading screen (as will going into gummi ship exploration), but even then the loading times aren't terrible...and for what you get I'm actually impressed.  Visually the worlds look gorgeous and the size of some of them is incredible compared to all of the past games.

It's just the characters can just feel off sometimes.  In the opening cutscenes or even just when it comes to characters we've seen in past games with this new upgrade, it's a bit of getting used to in this new style.  The beginning bit in Yen Sid's Tower for example just had me go "yikes" when I first saw it and still does every time I replay...but as the game progresses it just more tolerable and sometimes just great to look at.  At other times, you do get some little "yikes" factor, especially as I said with places like The Carribean when they're trying for digital realism.

But moves, magic, summons, even the annoying attractions all look gorgeous.  I love the keyblade form transitions as well as finishers, as they make them all pleasing to watch.

Despite some "uncanny-ness" from time to time though, the game looks gorgeous.  I especially love watching the plot cutscenes with the new style, because they just look even more phenomenal with the new style.  Overall, I think the engine upgrade worked wonders.

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Music
So, it took them a 3rd numbered title for them to change the song into something other than a version of Sanctuary and Simple and Clean.  Not only that, but Utada Hikaru actually did two new songs for this one.

I'm actually really impressed, because I thought both songs were quite excellent.  Face My Fears was a fantastic intro song (and the intro itself fit perfectly with it), and Don't Think Twice was a really lovely ending song.  It's funny because when these songs were introduced before the game release, I remember both got severe backlash because they "didn't fit" or "didn't sound as good as Simple and Clean or Sanctuary."  But honestly, I was really hyped to see how they were going to fit...especially since Face My Fears wasn't teased until the opening was shared publicly before release, so people were thinking Don't Think Twice was going to be the new intro/end song.

But personally, I loved them both.  Don't Think Twice was a beautiful ending song, and I loved Face My Fears as the intro.

THAT being said...there is a flipside to me enjoying Don't Think Twice.  If you recall in past games, if you let the title screen wait long enough, it'll play basically a small trailer of what to expect in the game you're about to play, along with an orchestrated version of the "main" song.  For this game, they chose Don't Think Twice for the Orchestrated version (which makes sense since Face My Fears wouldn't work orchestrated).  For the most part, the song works fine...but there's one part in the "chorus" of the original song that for some reason, a note is played flatter than it is in the original song.  It's a severely minor detail, but as someone who tends to notice small differences in songs, it was incredibly bothersome to me that they didn't keep the original note and went for something flat (and then near the end, they did it the original way...TF?).

Off of that note, the rest of the soundtrack was splendid as always.  The new worlds had some wonderful music for traveling through them, overworld and Gummi exploration music was great, and all of the returning music had exceptional revamps to them that made them sound even better than their original rendition.  Before you ask (since I'm sure some may be curious): No the PoTC theme music didn't return as the battle music again, and I'm grateful for that in all honesty.  While it fit in KH2, it would have felt exceptionally out of place in KH3 despite The Caribbean literally being Pirates of the Caribbean based.

In reality, aside from "Let It Go," "Do you Want to Build a Snowman," and the revamped lyric-less version of "You've Got a Friend in Me" for Toybox world, much of the world music was pretty original.  Again, I'm actually grateful for that because while I love the various music in the movies that the worlds are based off of, I very much liked hearing the original music that the directors cooked up for this, and I feel like anything different just wouldn't have fit as well.

Overall, the soundtrack was fantastic (my favorites outside of the lyrical ones were probably San Fransokyo, Corona, Toybox, and Anti Aqua), and once again it had a very lovely version of Dearly Beloved, with probably the most unique and beautiful openings and overall styles to it.

Sounds/Voices

No complaints in sounds.  Everything was fine here, again a lot of sounds were used from past KH titles, and I can't think of anything grating here.

Voices also for the most part were well done.  Main cast sounded great, and I was much more impressed with this version of Jack Sparrow (who sounded much more like a good Johnny Depp impression).  Naturally they also got a lot of original VAs including all of Frozen's VA cast back, which was nice.  It was unfortunate that they weren't able to get Tom Hanks or Tim Allen for Toybox since it's canon to the movies...but the people they picked (one being Tom Hanks' brother I believe) did very well in their impressions, even if it was noticeable sometimes.  Likewise, overall all of the impressionist VAs did great with what they were given.

Eh...well, okay, there was a big, BIG exception.

So if you remember in my last review, I mentioned how Dream Drop Distance was Leonard Nimoy's last game before he died.  If you also recall, he was voicing the main antagonist, Master Xehanort.

Naturally, this was awful both in the fact that Leonard Nimoy was exceptionally talented, and that he had an equally exceptionally unique voice.

When Rutger Hauer came in to voice Master Xehanort in the OG game, it was spotted instantly as the voice inflections and overall tone was completely different.  What was once a raspy but powerful and commanding voice was now much softer in its inflections, and almost commanded no real authority in its overall tone.  It was almost a complete 180, sort of like when Michael Gambon took over as Dumbledore when the original one died: the original actor had a soft spoken, quiet voice while Gambon had a much more loud, overall stern and commanding voice.

This was the problem with Master Xehanort's new VA, except in reverse.  What was once commanding and powerful was now more softspoken and a little questionable.

But then, Rutger Hauer died after the game released, so he couldn't dub the new lines for the DLC.  So we have yet another VA coming in sounding different yet again....this one being more in the middle since it's Christopher Lloyd of all people.

Surprisingly, I actually liked Lloyd's voice better and wondered why they didn't go with him in the first place as Nimoy's replacement.  He still didn't have the power and gruff that Nimoy put into it, but he was at least much closer.

That was really the only big surprise though.  Everyone else did phenomenal...and in truth even Master Xehanort's replacement VA's were fine...it's just really difficult to measure up to a guy like Nimoy with his unique voice.

However, GOD I KNOW THERE'S INGREDIENTS, STFU!  As I said, you'll be hearing your characters cry about ingredients they see every 5 seconds with no way to turn it off outside of muting it.  Same goes for if there's a lucky emblem nearby.

Replayability
This game is bursting with side activities.  On top of having a secret ending in the OG game as well as a secondary one in the DLC, there's also:

*Flantastic Flan Mini games throughout the worlds.
*Cooking with Little Chef mini games (just grab ingredients whenever you hear someone mention it!)
*Gummi Ship Missions
*Lucky Emblem photo ops for rewards
*Moogle Photo Op missions
*Data Battles with the new Organization XIII + a secret super boss (DLC)
*Classic Kingdom series of 23 8-bit mini games
*Sledding via Arendelle
*100 Acre Woods mini game with 4 different types
*Optional bosses and Omega bosses for Gummi Ship battles
*Battle Gates (much like Dream Drop Distance) with optional super bosses
*Secret reports scattered throughout random Battle Gates
*Super Secret ending that fully closes Sora's Story for now (accessible by beating the 2nd part of the DLC)

And more that I haven't touched on.  Basically...there's a lot to do to keep you busy.

Overall
It has its flaws, but it was one of those exceptionally hyped games that was bound to disappoint on some level.   While the story goes from shaky to questionable to questionably pointless to "Sure, it's good" and the gameplay has some equally questionable changes or additions such as the Attraction Flow.  However, the overall game itself can be quite fun outside of some potentially squandered worlds like Arendelle.  But despite those, it's still a nice game to go through simply because of how beautiful the worlds are and how massive they are, how entertaining some of the familiar worlds are to go through, and because you get to listen to a great soundtrack once more throughout.

For those who made the journey throughout all the games, this is still a decent conclusion to the Xehanort saga, even if it could have been better.  But for what it is, I do still recommend it as an overall decent game.

And that's the end of A Month of Keys: A Review of Most things Kingdom Hearts.  For those who viewed these topics, I hope this gave you some insight as to the different games, and thank you for taking the time to check them out!