Kingdom Hearts III - Pre-Order Now To Unlock The Magic - January 29, 2019!

[IceSylph]

Finished the game. I'd give a 7.5-8/10 overall. The combat really brings it down for me. Like I mentioned earlier, it's way too easy, even on Proud. Level 1 isn't fun due to chip damage. The only "challenging" fight is final boss. The game throws too many attraction/limits at you without you having to earn them. Attraction flows are just weird, even from a lore standpoint. It's only in there because of Disney World rides.

Music is great.
Cutscenes are great, though long at times.
Some of the Disney worlds are okay, but overall, I don't really give a shit about the Disney worlds.
Camera can get wonky at times, where you lose sight of where your character is.
Verum Rex is cool, and would probably make a better game than FFXV.
The characters that needed to be fleshed out, were not. I would have preferred much less Disney Worlds if it meant that we got more time with the OG characters.
Gummi ship is not fun, in my opinion. Much preferred it in KH2.

Major end game/post-game/secret ending spoilers below

Spoiler: show

Worst world is Pirates for me. Did not enjoy the gameplay of it at all.

Final "boss rush" battles where it's 2-3 Organization members at a time were meh. Would have preferred one on one, even if you didn't get to fight all of them. And how it goes into a cutscene if you beat one, then after the cutscene you still have the other. Like, what was the other doing during the cutscene, just twiddling his thumbs?

Did not expect Xigbar/Braig to be Luxu. I assumed he was connected to the Keyblade in some way from back in DDD, but did not expect it like that. I kind of thought he was more involved with Xehanort's plans than he let on, due to how cutscenes played out in DDD.

They did literally nothing with the box. It just sets up for the next story arc.

I'm not sure who Axel/Lea/AnsemTW/AnsemSoD were referring to when they said they experimented on a girl. Some people think it may be Ava (she's the only Foreteller missing at the end). Apparently there's some info in the Reports in the game, but I haven't gotten any.

I feel like they did a major step back on Aqua's character development. In BBS and 0.2, I get that she's a strong character, and is really composed. In KH3 I feel like she kind of just drew the short end of the stick a few times, and was a victim of time restraints.

I'm really salty they didn't do much with Larxene. Was hoping she'd get a lot more screentime. Was my favorite character in 0.2.

Axel finally got new clothing :D

Secret ending shows that Sora/Riku are in The World that Ends With You's world, I believe? I thought it was going to be Insomnia for a minute, I swear I heard Somnus playing.

I think BBS is still my favorite plot-wise. The ending/secret episode playable section or whatever it's called was the highlight for me, and got me really invested.

[Shenrien]

I will touch on the subject of lv.1 proud. It is entitely possible to not do chip damage but you need to be prepared to grind.

I found monsters inc keyblade and pirates keyblade best until Ultima Weapon. 3x Orichalcum Rings will give you an 18 STR bonus. Upgrading either keyblade to max nets you, all of the beef foods give you max HP and attack boosts. All said and done you are looking at a +60ish str modifier which is equal to a lv.50 player using chump accessories. The added max HP helps prevent 1 shots, ofc being able to have multiple meals you're looking at more than just the benefit of that one food type.

I have also done a lot of grinding to test various builds and found melee to be stronger than magic, while firaga spam can be powerful with enough magic buffs and fire boosts you are at the mercy of eyhers or waiting.

[Katlan]

I will touch on the subject of lv.1 proud. It is entitely possible to not do chip damage but you need to be prepared to grind.

I found monsters inc keyblade and pirates keyblade best until Ultima Weapon. 3x Orichalcum Rings will give you an 18 STR bonus. Upgrading either keyblade to max nets you, all of the beef foods give you max HP and attack boosts. All said and done you are looking at a +60ish str modifier which is equal to a lv.50 player using chump accessories. The added max HP helps prevent 1 shots, ofc being able to have multiple meals you're looking at more than just the benefit of that one food type.

I have also done a lot of grinding to test various builds and found melee to be stronger than magic, while firaga spam can be powerful with enough magic buffs and fire boosts you are at the mercy of eyhers or waiting.

I finally got to start last night but only played for like an hour I plan to put the real hours into it this weekend. I started in proud but did mystic/magic. Should I switch over to balanced/warrior?

[Shenrien]

I don't believe beginning choice matters much if you plan to focus magic or melee. The real benefit of mystic is higher max mp which allows for one or two firagas and maybe one more thundaga for farming.

[Daydreamer]

I finally got to start last night but only played for like an hour I plan to put the real hours into it this weekend. I started in proud but did mystic/magic. Should I switch over to balanced/warrior?

I'm also mystic/magic. The first world had a few points that I won't say were hard, but requires you to at lest pay attention. By the time you hit world 4 you'll be blasting everything. On proud mode the boss of work 4 was an absolute joke just spamming magic.

[Gokku]

I'm also mystic/magic. The first world had a few points that I won't say were hard, but requires you to at lest pay attention. By the time you hit world 4 you'll be blasting everything. On proud mode the boss of work 4 was an absolute joke just spamming magic.

Lmao I also started yesterday and went double magic. Struggled a bit just finished world one, all I Know is being able to cast waterza or w/e is broken its an insta kill on half a room

[Exoduso]

Anyone have a big problem with the fact that the Young Xehanort that travels in time has yellow eyes and pointy ears and is much taller than the boy playing chess with Eraqus (who has gray eyes and is much shorter, and even voiced by someone else), yet the games kept billing YX as the original one that has not left Destiny Islands yet? There is a clear discrepancy here that they just didn't address.

[Shenrien]

It couldn't be something to do with the guy that handed him down No Name and being made a pawn in the greater game of chess.

[Vaspinne]

So I'm right near the end here and am about to work on the Ultima Keyblade. How much of a pain in the ass is it? I have 5 Orichalcum+ already (which were all surprisingly easy otherwise), just missing the Frozen Slope Slide one and the Flan/Pudding mini-games one

I also need to unlock the recipe. I have 55 crafting materials checked off but not 58, and frustratingly enough, while I have a list of all the materials I currently have handed in, there's no list of materials I've handed in overall. AND, it would be super fucking nice if they put a check mark or something beside everything you've already crafted at least once.

There are a handful of QoL changes this game could really use.

[Shenrien]

Not hard at all, you will be repeating the Frozen Slope Slide multiple time to get all 10 collectables so be prepared for that.. This has probably been the easiest Ultima Weapon to unlock in the series.

[Vaspinne]

Not hard at all, you will be repeating the Frozen Slope Slide multiple time to get all 10 collectables so be prepared for that.. This has probably been the easiest Ultima Weapon to unlock in the series.

Do I have to collect all 10 in 1 run? Or just get them all over the course of a few runs?

[Shenrien]

You can collect them one at a time.

[Elcura]

That's the most annoying part personally. Some of them are really tucked away and it took me several runs to not only find them but try to not fuck up in collecting them lol.

[Elcura]

So having just finished this on proud and I immediately want to start my critical run so I can really see how the battle system holds up under real pressure...BUT IT DOESN'T EXIST. Am I just going to have to do a low level proud run? Hopefully they add it later.

For the most part I definitely agree things are easier especially considering Proud is the hardest mode available, but that might also just be due to controls being a bit tighter and it being less hassle to do shit.

All the new movement commands feel great and are super useful and I especially love shotlock warping. I love that you can customise your skills and way to fight (don't like flowmotion? turn it off LOL) and that everything seems to be unlocked by level 50. Magic is a massive improvement from last games where it's balanced enough that it doesn't completely overturn the game (hello Balloon) but still useful. Combining Aero/Bliz into flowmotion commands is fun, my only gripe is there aren't a lot of spells. I was kinda hoping for something new or weird.

Keyblade transformations are better than I expected, they actually change the way you fight and modify your magic/skills. It's worth reading what every form can do cause some of it is nice. The best thing was being able to switch between keyblades though, and not only that you can store your transformations if you switch? Holy shit the madness of being able to go from 1 form combo skills to another for the finisher or another keyblade for the magic modifier and finisher. It's not as clean as something like DMC/Bayonetta, but the fact I'm even mentioning those games near KH is crazy.

Being able to cancel combo strings with blocks/dodges is very nice, and I'm surprised it took KH this long to really give it a shot. It's not perfect since you can't really cancel finishers (if you could holy shit) but it's a step in the right direction for better combat. There's also a little bit of AI customisation which is nice since you can effectively tell your team to fuck off if you want to effectively solo, they also seem a damn bit stronger and more useful overall.

As for the bad...Attraction commands and Link commands. Not only do they spam you with attraction commands there is no way to turn them off. They're useful for sure but they break the flow of combat and need to be like 500% rarer because I was totally bored of them by world 2. Combine that with the fact that you'll get partner commands, grand magic commands and keyblade transformations all at the same time there's definitely too many win buttons floating around. The most annoying is trying to pick up some ingredients with commands around and slightly missing so you have to watch like 10 seconds of animations by accident.

Link commands are also kinda the same except you can choose if you wanna use it or not. They're mostly useless since they take all your MP and don't deal amazing damage and you can still get rocked during it.

Lock-on/target acquisition is fucking atrocious as well. I swear there used to be at least 2 buttons to cycle targets but I swear trying to lock on and fight something will fail like 10-20% of the time, also doesn't help that sometimes the camera likes to spaz out.

Middle ground? Wall running. The level design is fantastic at times and free running is kinda amazing at the start or when you reach some high place. But it's kinda limited and doesn't feel good if you try to do more than just run straight up or straight to the side. They used it a lot better than I thought they would and I'm glad the level design can be so vertical now.

Another middle ground? Underwater combat. It's not bad, it's actually feels decently good when you get used to it, but there's no variety to underwater combat and it kinda goes the opposite direction to normal combat where suddenly there's not enough to do.

[Anoat]

I’ve finished Monstropolis as of yesterday. I’ll say the Gummi ship stuff has grown on me. Still my biggest detractor to this is the abundance of cutscenes of just straight gibberish. Hearts, darkness, nobodies, clones, it’s just...terrible. I’m sure there are some KH super fans out there who adore this stuff. But it’s not for me. The game play is very fun and really the only thing keeping me playing because the story is just incredibly cringe. I yearn for the much simpler KH1 story of oh shit it’s Disney and FF characters teaming up to fight stuff. This convoluted, overbloated, and poorly written extra story and dialogue that SE has come up with...just, ugh.

[Vaspinne]

Lots of stuff written here

Pretty much agree with everything you wrote. Attractions being my biggest gripe with how overly frequent they are. As well as a couple QoL changes I would have liked that I mentioned earlier.

Overall though I love this game and will easily play it again if they release a critical mode. Proud is way too easy so I can only imagine how much of an eye-roll standard or easy mode are lol

[Vaspinne]

I’m sure there are some KH super fans out there who adore this stuff.

Me :3

Albeit, at times it can be super cringey, but for the most part I really liked the story. Especially the end

[Rooney]

Just seconding that waterza early game is stupid broken, even against bosses. I can't believe they put that in so early.

[Elcura]

Pretty much agree with everything you wrote. Attractions being my biggest gripe with how overly frequent they are. As well as a couple QoL changes I would have liked that I mentioned earlier.

Overall though I love this game and will easily play it again if they release a critical mode. Proud is way too easy so I can only imagine how much of an eye-roll standard or easy mode are lol

Yeah I loved it too, stupid story and all.

I don't analyze KH's story, shit's just a dumb fun ride, and they had some really nice moments for fans of basically every single game. The end stuff especially.

Special mentions to some of the level design here, fantastic.

Spoiler: show

The Final World is basically one of those Escher pictures but you can run along walls and warp all around to find all of Sora's animations lol. So good. Definitely needed more weird shit like that.

The actual final world would have been AMAZING to slowly travel up towards while fighting stuff. KH3 was kinda lacking that final area, I thought it was definitely going to happen but it was just more boss fights (which while impressive, wasn't really amazing for pacing).

Also let's not forget the MUSIC. Now that I've finished the game I've been listening to the OST and I fucking love it. 13 years of KH mashups and remixes can't contend with some of this shit lol.

[IceSylph]

Music is great, yeah. My favorite is from late late game:

Name of the track would probably give away what happens later on, if you know character themes, so I'll spoiler it.

Spoiler: show

Roxas' theme is my favorite KH piece of music overall, and this rendition of it with Xion's is really well done. I really wish we could have taken control of Roxas for this fight.