Spoiler Mode - Kingdom Hearts III

I hate this game. I wanted to love it, but I hated it.

Badalight

Glad I'm not the only one was disappointed at the game. So it's safe to post my opinion. Overall, a 7. The game was interesting up until it ended. Like an Anime, you get the story bits at the beginning, a bunch of filler right after, and a sudden rush to end the story in the last two/three episodes. I liked the Pirates world. Diving under water was cool. The ship parts I didn't care for. Plus, Donald's magic didn't do much for keeping the order with their appearances. I also liked the Tangled world for some reason. I don't like that this game is sold as the final chapter of the game. I did not know that these games were a part of some saga. Hated that ending. I revisted all the past games just to find out I have to wait some more. I need more closure than that. I'm interested to see what's next, but won't be rushing out to see it upon release as I did with this arc.

Pet Rent is So Dumb

Finally beat the game so I could come back and watch this! It was great. Definitely at of similar reactions and highlights. Surprised no one mentioned the epic moment when Donald sacrificed himself and cast Zettaflare. That got me in the feels heavy. The ending definitely is an amazing experience. So much happens but it's peace perfect. You really get to show burn your way to Xehanort. Such a wonderful game and series man.

Bennett M. Gastin III

romance? huh?

I would add to that, no Final Fantasy characters, and Kairi getting done dirty again, and put it at maybe a 7.5, but other than that I agree with everything you said. Put much better than I said it in my comment below.

Minamik

Yes!

Minamik

I loved all of the Disney worlds in the game, excluding 100 Acre Woods (Seriously, wtf happened? It's just a minigame hub) and Big Hero 6 (too big and empty and boring). But all the actual story stuff and most of the characters of the main game of Kingdom Hearts, felt really poorly done. The character dialogue felt really awkward and stilted, Organization members just popping in to tease Sora and drop a boss, then take off, Zero Final Fantasy characters (wtf?) The game left me feeling really weird, because I loved the Disney stuff aside from what I mentioned about Pooh and Hiro, but the Kingdom Hearts stuff just felt really awkwardly done, even having watched several recap videos. The one thing I do agree with them on, is that Kairi got done dirty...again!

Minamik

Sounds like DLC content to me.

coolcat_77

As far as I know that's the only missable scene in the game and you can't rewatch it in the theater mode. Also there are two versions of this scene and it seems random which one you get (only my assumption; A friend of mine got Namine and I got the other one at the same star). The first is the earlier mentioned Namine scene, the other is very similar but you talk to someone from the mobile game, maybe Ava or Strelizia. It's very unclear who it actually is.

coolcat_77

KH3 has the absolute WORST story I have ever experienced in a GOOD game. The gameplay and worlds are mostly good, and the visuals ate incredible, but even by KH standards, the writing, direction and storytelling are bad to the point of being actually embarrassing.

Anontastic

Was waiting for this! Great panel guys! Though I do feel, like others have mentioned, that it should've been longer. There was so much more that could've been discussed I feel, but it was either glossed over a bit, or not mentioned at all. So if you have the time, definitely consider stretching these panels out to like 1,5 or maybe even 2 hours. About the game itself: I was satisfied with it and I enjoyed my time with it, but there were certainly a couple of points which fell short for me or that I'm a bit conflicted about. First of all, I agree that the pacing was really slow during most of the game. You can certainly say that this was not much different in other KH games, but that doesn't really excuse it. At least the previous two mainline titles, certainly the first one, had much more stuff going on during and in between the Disney worlds which was relevant to the overarching plot. Here they simply pasted in some exposition cutscenes in between, which didn't flow all that well. Also, the whole finding the power of waking thing was really vague when all you do in the game is go to seemingly random worlds and help the locals out. There was no tangible thing going on there which tied back into Sora's mission. So in a way the traveling around to the worlds felt somewhat pointless. Sure, the Organization was there looking for boxes and pure hearts and what not, but that whole arc never went anywhere either. Second point I want to bring up is the difficulty of the combat. You can say that most parts of the other games felt like mash X to win as well, but those games still offered some scenarios and fights where you had to think about the combat more. Also, those other games did require you to use more of the mechanics more consciencely on higher difficulty levels. In this game, Proud is still too easy, the optional fights are also too easy and there is no Critical mode either. Most of the combat gameplay boils down to obtaining reaction commands (which is very easy) and then just spamming triangle to win. I really hope they release a Final Mix DLC which increases the challenge to make more of the combat mechanics shine. Then as a third point, the worlds. I think they are a bit hit and miss. Pirates was great because of the exploration, but the ship combat got a bit tedious and I didn't like the way the story was told (didn't like it in KH2 either btw). The resolution of the Toy Story world felt weird, where everyone just seems to be kinda okay with them being in some other dimension. This was never followed up on in some sort of second act (like they would do in KH2), but was just resolved without explanation during the credits at the end. Big Hero Six was an empty, lifeless city with not much to do in it. Twilight Town was great, but too small. It felt cut down. Same with Pooh, which was just one area and a variation on one minigame. Speaking of feeling cut, the Frozen world was basically just the mountain and a boring featureless labyrinth. No interior ice palace, no visiting the town like in the Tangled world. I also sorely missed at least one more non-Disney world like Radiant Garden or Traverse Town. There was more than enough space in the last Gummi area to accomodate for that. Last but not least, the presentation. There's many well realised cutscenes, but the voice performances overall were really subpar, certainly for a 2019 game. Donald and Mickey had some terrible robotic lines. Riku talked like a robot in general most of the time, which was a big letdown after his decent performance in DDD. Xehanort lacked any sort of oomph in general. The general fanfic level of writing certainly didn't help much either. I know this has been the standard for KH for years now, but it wouldn't have hurt anyone if they finally improved on that by now. So yeah, overall I do think the game was a fun and polished experience and I walked away satisfied, but there were also quite a few lacking things which keeps the game from absolute greatness. I liked the Tangled, Hercules and Toy Story worlds, I loved what they did with Twilight Town (for the part that was there), exploration of islands in Pirates was a fun chance of pace, the overall feeling of the combat was solid, beautiful visuals all around, some great music like always and the payoff at the end and the way they did manage to tie everything together was quite well done. For me this is a solid 8/10 but certainly not a 9,5/10 like Brad's review.

SpectR0nn

I didnt like this game very much, it felt like a glorified ps2 game or very early ps3 game. So many very large, very empty worlds, the lack of variety in voice lines, the terrible attractions, mash x to win, not a single even halfway entertaining minigame, fanfic level writing. While playing i kept having the feeling that disney stepped in and denied any final fantasy characters in their stories. If it wasnt for everything from keyblade graveyard forward I'd hate this game, I'm certainly very sad that my budget only allowed for one game and i got this instead of RE2.

Jaime Mas

There are two videos you could’ve seen that many recommend one about 35 minutes and the other is an hour. That basically gets you ready. I know an hour n a half is crazy but hey. The 35 minute one u could probably skip since it seems like you onlY need the hour one on the mobile stuff.

Soul

I looked at this game way differently, it was like a 7/10 to me at best, I don't want to do hours of homework watching videos or playing mobile games to understand some main plot points, I already played 1, 2, 3D, 358, BBS, 0.2, some more than once, and I still didn't get what the hell was going on in most the game. Yeah it was fun to play but bogged down by really bad pacing and long convoluted very bad dialogued cut scenes every 20 minutes. I completely missed the FF characters and original worlds. I don't like that theres no context for Sora running up walls and summoning Disney Attractions. Links were useless and contextless also which isn't usual for the series. I wish they'd just do a hard reset and leave all this baggage behind but it seems unlikely with the ending and way it was left.

sam

Great podcast, guys. Really wishing for those Square Enix worlds in the future. Rabanastre would be awesome! Meeting Balthier and the group (Vaan...i guess) in a PS5 engine would amaze me. Would love some Chrono Trigger and more TWEWY too. Nomura is still upset about FF Versus XIII with that secret ending and Verum Rex thing.

Rodrigo Ribeiro de Oliveira

Hey allies, Listening to you talk about wanting the crossover of the worlds and recruiting people to fight the villains made me think of the "Land of Stories" book series by Chris Colfer. He completely nails that crossover with the original Grimms fairy tales and other classic works of literature including a love story between Merlin and the Fairy Godmother! I loved the series even as an adult and I would love to see it animated or made into a video game. Take a look at the story synopses and you'll agree.

JessieBlu

Hey there guys. Honest feedback as someone who ADORES the series - this felt incredibly rushed. I'd been eagerly awaiting almost a story beat by story beat breakdown of the game, the mechanics, the visuals, and it seemed most were breezed over or forgotten entirely. I can appreciate time constraints, and maybe it was simply a case of that, but Kingdom Hearts III is a title you could talk about for multiple hours and still walk away having not said something. I loved the discussions to be fair, I just wanted more of them! Hopes, dreams, favourite part, favourite moment, best by best breakdown, the future. Ironically, it feels like many of my thoughts around III and it's rushed last half condensed in to this spoiler mode. But great stuff otherwise guys :) Love and respect, Chris

Chaeotic

I really don't like the rushed feeling of this spoiler mode. I feel like everyone had so much more they could say but restrained them selves. It would be great if spoiler mode could come to a natural close rather then a hard timed limit, especially with 5 people on the panel.

Rosamune

I've just got to say Spoiler Modes seem way too short depending on the topic and how long that game/movie might be. I realize the Allies don't have all the time in the world, but it seems to hurt the pacing of some of the Spoiler Modes. I guess that might just be the nature of the show. Still enjoyable to hear the thoughts and topics brought up though. Also, since I can't really call it a correction because there's no confirmation. I thought they made it somewhat obvious (if one also played TWEWY) that Sora was in a TWEWY world and Riku is in a Verum Rex world. Considering the nods to vXIII and XV, that building is not something from the real world and is in Verum Rex because the presence of Yozora and Somnus playing. The Citadel in Insomnia from vXIII/XV is based on that real world but Insomnia is not really an alternate real world location like TWEWY's world. I guess the world in Verum Rex could actually just be set in TWEWY's somehow or an alternate Tokyo, but again, all the nods Verum Rex has to vXIII kind of refute that.

Rappy

So I'm the least comfortable with the lore about the organization members other than Axel, but am I the only one who read romance in the final scene with Lea/Axel and Isa/Saix?

Elliette Kee

THE CULMINATION

Andrew Burton

A lot of empty space in that final Gummi hub too. The Keyblade Graveyard looks awfully lonely...

DaleBastion

Awesome timing, I grabbed the platinum last night. Very satisfying to finish up the Bistro sidequest, even if the minigames and cuisine bonuses aren't terribly engaging. My bet is that they bring back Mirage Arena as DLC - an easy way to facilitate drip-feed updates and multiplayer components.

DaleBastion

Love seeing Brad in the driver's seat.

Cash

100x this ^^ I'm slogging through it a world at a time. And I loved the series.

Cjenkins

This is the best ever spoiler mode.

Nick Geurtsen

Im glad someone enjoyed this game. I was let down on more than one level. No FF characters, pacing was awful, worlds were pretty but empty. Combat was ok, 10 years ago it would have been amazing but for 2019.... eh. Game was WAYYY to easy, even on Proud Mode. No awesome non-disney keyblades besides the ultima weapon. No Radiant Garden, Traverse Town, and dont get me started on Twilight Town. This game was all Disney and no Square enix, which was the while appeal of kingdom hearts.

William A Bowman

I'm surprised no one mentioned that even Disney infinity didn't even let cross overs happen. It's sadly just a legl thing at this point.

Sare

I really enjoyed this video.. The hardest part I have with most games is when characters are trying to figure something out, but their goal isn't a tangible thing.. Sora is trying to to figure out the power of waking. To do this he spends the game just randomly going to worlds to "try and figure it out" I don't like that meandering feeling. At least with Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 he is closing or opening up keyholes.. Easy Allies had it right, ending great, but the middle was very slow. What was the point adding the Princess of Heart Storyline again? Went nowhere :(

Dustin Kenyon

Brad hosting HYPE!

Joey and Cait

Chirithy was waiting for ven which is why they reunite at the end. Chirithy mentions how he forgot the past which he has. The other four have forgotten about the past as well(marluxia, larxene, demyx, n luxord). In the final world you’re able to speak with strelitzia which marluxia seems to remember as he’s being recompleted. Larxene also alluded to being close with lauriam/marluxia as she was fading. Skuld is presumably the mystery girl going by the reports. Also namine is supposedly responsible for armored terra showing up. It’s theorized lingering will tried fighting terranort within his body since the guardian did the same n that’s why you don’t see him. A nice thing being pointed out is Daybreak Town is under scala. Then again they have similar architecture so it had some tie to daybreak town.

Soul

omg. what if... now stay with me here... what if, we get a side game, like next year or something , and we get to play as Kairi and Axel during their keyblade master training! We can choose which player to be, maybe even be co-op, and it should def come to switch!. wouldnt that be neat?

Andrew Left

@ 26:00 So you guys probably missed a cut-scene in "The Final World". You meet Namine as a star (I think it's supposed to be her heart) in that world and she says that she found Terra's light (his lingering will armor) and that she will try and awaken him to help Sora out. That's why the second time around he is present in the fight. As for what happens afterwards, I have no clue. Maybe someone else in the comments section knows.

Ayesha Ahmed

You know, at first, i was really bummed that FF was not in KH3. mainly because i wanted to see Cloud and Sephiroph face off one last time. but then the more i thought about it.... KH core lore has enough "final fantasy"-like characters of their own. You can look at any of their characters (riku, axel, etc), and they look straight up like a FF character. So in a way, we were getting cool "final fantasy" characters. So, in the end, i still loved KH3... the story is one of the greats, many feels at that ending. such good payoffs. (still just a little bummed at no more FF, but i guess we don't need it anymore) MAYBE WE WILL FINALLY GET "VERSUS-13" tho!

Andrew Left

Kyle is so funny. "yeah. Everytime"

See You When I Get There

These games are so odd, the gameplay is so fun but the story is utter nonsense but still kind of good? I think? I have a strange relationship with Kingdom Hearts lol

Megan Linart

This video just makes me so happy ^_^

Ayesha Ahmed

They Keyblade setup on the desk is A+

Sam Handrick