KINGDOM HEARTS III + Re Mind (DLC)

Pros: Game is gorgeous and it's fun to play in the small parts it is fun. Cons: I have said "this game is so ***" an uncountable number of times while I've been playing this. There's a fun game somewhere in here, but it's held back by years of redoing and corporate heavy-handedness with AAA "Game Design"

游我所爱，任我风云，之前看查克拉和so姐一起玩的，现在也是终于圆梦了

Game gets lots of unnecessary hate. It's one of those games where you simply need to play it again post launch with an open mind. Many people hate on the game since it's a tradition to within the community. Sure the story felt lacking, but Kingdom Hearts was always convoluted to begin with, and the gameplay is stellar. Combat is some of the best combat you will get in an action game and the worlds are gorgeous and outclass every other world in previous kingdom hearts games.

If you are a fan of series or just want a nostalgic trip on Disney IP the game is fine I suppose. Otherwise it is a no for me. Here is why: The overall arch of story is so complex and convoluted that even fans of the series might not be walk you through it, yet the main protagonist, Sora, is sooo dumb that he somehow needs to tell his name all the time as if he was a pokemon. The soundtracks are not varied enough. For example going through toy story world, it feels like they just insert " - you got a friend in me " in any spot they can find. Where are other songs from the series? Where are original compositions? The mini games are mediocre and feels disconnected from another one. Take for example the gummi phone mini game or the cooking minigame. I would say not having them would be a better overall experience for players. The boss are poorly design. We exception of final sets of fights. Fighting a unit much larger than player in KH3 just plain feels bad. You can just get into the boss funny spot and mash attack until death.

This game is 70% cutscenes, and 50% of them don't make sense unless you have wikipedia open or played the 4 or 5 mobile titles that are all discontinued.

Rest In Peace Hayden Panettiere, voice of Kairi Died August 16th 2026

This was honestly the best game I've touched in ages..I loved every moment of this masterpiece. although I sat in a corner for 20 minutes because the ending broke me in ways I cant comprehend.

Kingdom Hearts III + Re Mind was a pretty fun ride overall. The combat feels great and flashy, and the worlds are way more open compared to earlier games, which makes exploration a lot nicer. Even the Gummi Ship sections feel closer to an open-world space map instead of the old linear routes, which I actually enjoyed a lot more. The story starts pretty slow and takes a while to really get going, but it does pick up near the end. That said, the finale of the Dark Seeker Saga felt a bit anticlimactic considering how long the buildup was across the series. Re Mind helps add some cool boss fights and extra context, though. One big technical issue I ran into: playing at 4K above 60 FPS can cause a memory leak, so expect stuttering on certain cutscenes and the Gummi Ship editor.

I probably would have given KH3 a thumbs down if I was writing this in 2019. While I really enjoyed the game, it frustrated me to no end. Going back to it now, almost exactly seven years later, I think that despite everything it deserves a “soft” thumbs up, especially with the Re Mind DLC included. To start off, I am still upset about the lack of Final Fantasy characters. I’ve heard the argument many times that since the original characters have become more prominent over the years, it was time to move on from the FF cast, or that their absence wasn’t that big of a deal. I wholeheartedly disagree. Especially after replaying the earlier entries, it feels genuinely strange to walk through big empty rooms that were once occupied by people like Leon, with no one even mentioning them. Aerith, Yuffie, Cid, Leon, and others were integral parts of Sora’s story, and they had far more influence and importance to the plot than Roxas’ friends or Scrooge freakin’ McDuck. So no, I’m not convinced by that argument at all. I think this was the single worst decision they made with this game. Did Re Mind redeem it? I’ll get to that in a bit. One of the best parts of KH3 is the Disney worlds. I’ve never really liked how the Disney worlds were handled after KH Final Mix, especially what KH2 did to them, where they mostly felt like big empty combat hubs. In KH3, though, they are large and elaborate, and while they’re still not as interesting or layered as the first game, they do have secrets and a real sense of exploration. The modern graphics also help a lot. During some cutscenes, it’s honestly hard to tell that you’re not watching a Pixar movie. If you stopped playing the series somewhere between KH2 and BbS, or if you just want to try a Kingdom Hearts game and don’t give a damn about the story and only care about the Disney worlds, then this is, honestly, the best entry to pick up. The story is bad, at least when taken on its own. I’ve read a lot of complaints about the pacing, and while I think people are onto something, pacing isn’t really the core issue. The pacing has always been awful in this series, so that’s nothing new. The real problem is that KH3 lacks a compelling, engaging storyline that pulls you in and unfolds as you make progress, like KH1 and KH2 did. I think people often mistake that absence for pacing issues. The story picks up where DDD left off and mostly feels like it just wants to wrap up the Xehanort stuff as quickly as possible. It’s not really telling a story in the traditional sense, with a beginning, middle, and end. It feels more like paperwork, just checking items off a list. That’s why it feels so different from earlier KH games. That said, I enjoyed the story more this time around after playing through Dark Road. KH3 already has an insane number of loose ends to deal with. At one point, Jiminy Cricket basically says, “Okay, we don’t have time to explain how or why Ventus is connected to Sora, or why they’re both connected to Vanitas. You can read about it in my journal. We’ve already sat through three hours of cutscenes, let’s move on.” I get why they rushed things, but honestly, the Xehanort storyline becomes so much more meaningful if you’ve played Dark Road. I really wish that had been included in the 2.8 collection. If you look at KH3 as part of a much larger narrative, it’s not that bad. If you judge it as a standalone story told from beginning to end, it’s a total mess. From a gameplay perspective, KH3 actually does some really interesting things and pulls together mechanics from previous games in a fairly elegant way. I genuinely enjoy "playing" KH3. That said, the base game is absurdly easy. A friend of mine who usually sticks to Normal or Easy played it on Proud when it came out and was still annoyed by how easy it was, which I completely understand. Re Mind fixes a lot of this, along with the lack of meaningful content after finishing the main game. If you’re playing this version, I strongly recommend playing on Critical instead of Proud if you want to engage with the combat at all, rather than just button-mashing your way to the credits. Now, let’s talk about Re Mind. Re Mind is a very mixed bag. If I were reviewing it on its own, I’d probably give it a thumbs down without hesitation. When it’s bundled with the base game at a reasonable price, though, it does enhance the overall experience, even if it’s still not a particularly good DLC. For a large portion of Re Mind, you’re essentially rewatching the final Keyblade Graveyard scenes with added context and time travel nonsense. Some of it adds a little to the story, but most of it feels unnecessary and redundant. Did we really need to explicitly spell out that the Lingering Will is “Terra’s thoughts”? Did we need to watch the Terra-Xehanort fight again, plus an added scene of Sora time-traveling to save the Lingering Will, only for the Lingering Will to sacrifice himself for Sora? I really don’t think so. On top of that, Re Mind is basically a boss rush, and there are effectively no new story bosses. You’re fighting the same characters you’ve fought a billion times throughout the series. The data battles are cool, sure, but this really should have been marketed as Kingdom Hearts 3.5 Final Mix. As for the Final Fantasy characters in Re Mind, I could rant for hours, but I’ll keep it short. The cameo was insultingly half-assed, even if I’m still glad it happened at all due to the backlash. Another major reason I’m giving it a thumbs up is that it runs very smoothly on the Steam Deck. That said, I still prefer playing it on PC, simply because of how good it looks there.