Waiting 13 Years For A Video Game

funny that 17 years after beating that first game we're kind of back right where we were huh [Music] Kingdom Hearts 3 just released making its arrival 13 years after Kingdom Hearts 2 a game which was also heavily anticipated for what at the time seems like a very long four or so years Kingdom Hearts 3 boots and immediately as a fan of the first two games it's hard not to get caught up and a little emotional in the way his cage theory continues Kingdom Hearts tradition as if the over a decade of waiting had never happened the title screen is once again a minimalistic bit of concept art with another new rendition of dearly beloved playing over the top a pre-rendered CGI music video with insane production value once again kicks in with a brand new song from Hikaru Utada unlike the spin-off titles that used the songs that debuted in Games one and two this time a whole new track is here to distinguish this game as the next main line entry into Kingdom Hearts after so long its confident and it says yes here we are we're back it's happening to me at least at the same time KH 3 is kind of masquerading as this ultra important game that needed to happen and we've been waiting for rather than authentically being one like KH 2 was when that came out Kingdom Hearts 1 ended on a downer of an ending which in and of itself could have stood alone as this kind of bittersweet tragic conclusion but there were definitely interesting loose threads and room to continue chain of memories built on that with a real big downer of a whole game that raised the stakes and set up more intrigue the build-up to KH 2 was crazy it felt like a game that needed to happen at that point to give closure to the first it wrapped up that games arc perfectly brought things full circle and ended with some definite bitter sweetness while giving a satisfying conclusion to the mission set out for us in that first game by the end of Kingdom Hearts 2 it felt super satisfying to have completed the goal that Sora was trying to accomplish in the first title especially when it seems like the chance of that happening for him was so low after the end of the first game and the weight between titles Kingdom Hearts 3 on the other hand for the most part isn't continuing or wrapping up anything that happened in those games it's continuing a bunch of stuff that was made up and added on after Kingdom Hearts 2 and how important this games premises you is going to depend on how much those titles meant to you anything here quote unquote continued from kh2 feels like additions made to already completed arcs rather than organic continuations which makes this kind of a thirteen-year way to name only in some ways for me it's not here to conclude anything from Kingdom Hearts to that already concluded its arc Sauron Co get a letter at the end of that game but to me at the time all that implied was oh these guys all went on a series of further adventures a nice little addendum but nothing I necessarily had to see they could have been solving a tax dispute in Agrabah for all I knew and no I don't think an unintelligible secret movie is part of the story that needs to be wrapped up don't start on me Kingdom Hearts 3 isn't Kingdom Hearts 3 because it's a follow up to Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 its Kingdom Hearts 3 because it's a new big main line console Sora Donald and Goofy Adventure and yes we haven't had one of those for 13 years and taken on those terms yeah this is a pretty exciting game even for me after the opening and the traditional esoteric tutorial level were thrust into the action surprisingly quickly unlike the slow build ups we got in KH 1 & 2 now there was this sort of ground zeroes prologue released a few years ago which I didn't play about the character aqua going through some fights in a dank darkness Hell world which I wonder if that was intended originally to be the opening to cage 3 and was just released early after all if playing as Roxas for a couple of hours at the start of KH 2 was an excellent analog for the few years we spent waiting for cage 2 to come out playing as this character being stuck in a miasma of darkness and despair for a decade would have probably made for an even more fitting analog for the wait leading up to Kingdom Hearts 3 if it had been used for the start of this game but alas it wasn't meant to be KH 3 still tries to elicit something akin to the feeling of a delayed start like KH 2 did by branding the first level where Sora returns to an older Disney World from prior games as Kingdom Hearts 2 point 9 and then after that when he gets his new clothes and goes into newer worlds it becomes Kingdom arts three but it feels a bit half-hearted compared to how to handle that sort of thing it's hard to see the Hercules world as some kind of not actually Kingdom Hearts 3 level when it clearly is it only takes one more level with Sora receiving a smartphone for the 13-year gap between titles to become really noticeable Kingdom Hearts 2 came out in the mid-2000s just before broadband internet would become a household staple in the late 2000s and before smartphones when we were still using our Advent Children flip phones baby so seeing Sora take selfies and make Instagram posts now is really uncanny to see but at the same time kind of inspired and appropriate I mean Kingdom Hearts back in the day was trying to be Disney but with cool modern Tetsuo Nomura related Final Fantasy s characters with audacious fashion trying to be hip and modern was always somewhat it's a stetic so it fits to update that with social media references here now I like it that's some sort of spyglass probably French I I also like the different reactions characters have to the technology speaking of tech this game looks great graphics and detail were blowing me away and can I just say how far it feels we've come from the dark realm quote-unquote so that was the 7th gen where so much stuff ran like crap kh3 looks great and even on a base ps4 can run at an uncapped framerate and can reach even a smooth 60 on better console models that said with today's impressive visuals and detail and a long development cycle and since this is a big follow up to an old franchise which traditionally have been known to come out a little undercooked now we got to ask that good old diminishing returns question was the scope of this game compromised thanks to the need for extreme modern detail and cost of long developments like so many games today tallied up it doesn't feel like the game is compromised that much at least when it comes to the main quest and that bare minimum is nice to see the main storyline feels meaty and like it saw there 30 hours about the same length as the other two main games Twilight town a smaller but then you get crazy worlds like Pirates of the Caribbean where ports royale is big and open and you have an entire mini windwaker style set off to go exploring in it's great it feels like there's a bit of a trade-off going on in some regards you get these cool massive levels but the game feels a bit naked without really any kind of nice comfortable juicy hub worlds to call its own when ii felt like it had multiple of those the game doesn't benefit from better hardware just graphically there are much fewer load screens levels can be sprawling and huge but movement is fast and fun enough on its own to never make traverse or much of a drag these levels definitely feel like something that couldn't have been accomplished or at least anywhere near as smoothly 13 years ago and since Kingdom Hearts games have been designed for handheld since - it's quite a leap to suddenly see a series floating around on 6th generation at best tech for years suddenly jump to modern home consoles and make the most of it without compromising too much on performance though it does feel very generation 6 about this game is its ps2 as hell design philosophy you drop out of beautiful cutscenes and go to town on your enemy without landish and unrestrained moves big cutscenes style attacks with limited interactivity are usually optional control isn't forced out of your hands for cinematic posturing or something like the dreaded walking segment sometimes you just got to play a ps2 franchise about Disney wards to get away from that in your action games but when Kingdom Hearts does get a little more scripted it leans into the language of games rather than out of them not pining for cinematic style immersion it uses the game's hard to the commands deck to contextualize every bit of context-sensitive pre-scripted action as if everyone off event was just another move in your repertoire and beatriz of this game will know what I mean when I say a certain late-game shmup like sequence is the stuff of legends thanks to this stylistic choice for me intertwining elements like the hard into context-sensitive moments lessens the disconnect between flashy set piece or cutscene and basic gameplay rather than making it larger which I don't think most modern games agree with me on I won't show any examples of that kind of modern game because I don't really want to annoy anyone today you know if you've seen enough of my videos you can probably picture one for yourself at this point uncompromising gaming us and Kingdom Hearts is why it's actually kind of great seeing properties like Pirates of the Caribbean adapted for it because in this context rather than some kind of grounded restrained affair a serious game version of this IP would likely end up like these days you get this really fun completely outlandish gamified interpretation of Pirates of the Caribbean that cuts down on busy work for crazy fast-paced action what other pirate games let you do this come on nowhere though is the sixth generation design exemplified more than in the final hours I was super worried that the ending would be disappointing but the last five hours of kh3 the final stretch leading up Stefan alley the final area as a whole so to speak was well it's like the best final five or so hours I think I've played in a game since the ps2 days I don't say that lightly and I think the rest of the game leading up to its can be kind of hit and miss but hmm this finale I have wanted something like this again in a game for so many years another descent into uncanny esoteric Kingdom Hearts Anarchy that cage 1 & 2 did so well at their end is brilliantly executed here again the bosses at the end of the game was so much fun I was so giddy thanks to these climactic scenarios that were taking place and the beautiful boss the medleys that were playing courtesy of the amazing Yoko Shimomura soundtrack which as usual is one of the best parts of any Kingdom Hearts game and lends itself perfectly to that ever-present melancholic action feel pianos and violins and boss fight music it's just always good I'm sorry just is all of this created an amazing finale that didn't seem to skimp on anything gameplay wise with one climax one upping the one that came before again and again it's paced exactly how I dream of action game finales being paced it's so beautiful the way the final moments of the final boss fight ends especially with the classic trio coming together it nailed the kind of wholesomeness in the face of darkness the Kingdom Hearts does so well a real throwback to the first games finale it made me feel like I was playing the end of a classic ps2 title again and in that sense whether or not this game is wrapping up anything I specifically care about doesn't really matter because it delivered on that giving me an amazing action conclusion that feels like it's from a classic game from the era it's early predecessors came from rather than being like a lot of modern games something that looks pretty while skimping on the gameplay substance because there was not enough time to fully recreate the scope of past entries kh3 edits conclusion and throughout a lot of the game manages to bring back the meat of what we loved before and enhance it with today's production values I don't think I can say it quite reaches the scope of Kingdom Hearts twos campaign the final segment of the finale could have probably done with more actual level to explore but I didn't expect a modern game like this to come as close to cage 2 in the scope of its campaign as it does for the most part there are a few caveats coming up and honestly I feel like if you are a big fan of the post to spin-off plots that's why you might feel a bit shortchanged because all that stuff seems to get wrapped up very quickly and neatly without too much hassle or sacrifice and myself is a big fan of the Roxas storyline from - one of the plot threads from - feeling forced to continue here I have mixed feelings about that plotline getting an addendum here and spoilers undoing that characters beautiful tragic fate into an addendum which like other resolutions in this title feels way too easily and effortlessly concocted 13 years since cage 2 does mean we've had the original bittersweet ending for that plot intact for a long time and I guess we can play Kingdom Hearts 2 and enjoy it that way without taking into account anything that takes place after it as much as we want I'm trying not to get Canon change peeved here but I'm sure there are people who loved the ending that Roxas got into like me who are going to be more miffed about how it's followed up on here and I can sympathize one day the ending Roxas gets in three is gonna be the one he's had to the longest rather than the one in two right now since it's been 13 years since to a further resolution that undoes some of the tragedy of two might seem like a grand payoff for patient fans but one day the gap between the titles will seem insignificant and this conclusion to his arc will seem like the definitive one originally intended for him and not the addendum to the completed story of two that it is the game still ends on a kind of sad note in one regard though which I like sort of reinstating the vibe the first game ended on which is pretty cool in my book small spoilers it's interesting that out of all the things that end up on a happy note in the second game that's the thing that gets the most undone here appropriate though I think and at least it ends the trilogy with the emphasis on the struggle of the characters from the first game I think where the plot of kh3 suffers is in the fact that while it's a game trying to deal with a plotline from all these different spin-offs or the Disney worlds are mostly new so while half the game is spent having to introduce all these new characters in having our protagonists become friends with them we also have loads of KH baggage to deal with KH 2 had a lot of returning Disney franchises so so much extra constant expositing and all these introductions weren't necessary I think the worlds that work best are the ones that take place outside of the film's plot where the game kind of makes up its own story the ones that take place during the movie the Disney world is based on have this awkward thing going on where a pivotal moment from the film is happening in Sora Donald and Goofy are just somewhere in the background like over there or whatever the pirates world is especially problematic for this as it's based on the third Pirates movie which feels by the way like a very random thing to be recreating in 2019 but whatever so it becomes pretty apparent that having Sora Donald and Goofy hang out with the cast as that plot is happening would be kind of hard to contrive so instead while the real Jack Sparrow is doing the plot of the film Sora and the boys go do some unrelated busy work with a fake Jack Sparrow and then show up just for the finale of the movie I mean okay it's easy to point holes and the self contains Disney plots here but it's also hard not to admire the opulence of it all I don't think I want to know how much time and money was spent on some of these cinematics I can't help but bask in the world we live in where somebody approved this let them remake scenes from these movies at such a grand scale with donald goofy and a Tetsu you know more a character in them using new worlds having to deal with all their baggage while making such a gargantuan sequel to your own convoluted story is hard but it's the nature of making a game like there's so much later than the last one you did you want to create something fresh with brand new worlds and contemporary properties because yeah I think Pixar excluded Disney has a lot more of those than they did in 2005 to draw in new and old players alike but you also have to tie up a bunch of decade-old loose ends at the same time and that is something that kh3 can't help but wobble about while doing like an oversized tightrope walker swaying back and forth wildly between huge chunks of Disney movie and KH law the fact that it does make it to the other side of that rope has you know at least got to be a little impressive right I wonder though if being so caught up in such a complicated story with all this other stuff going on means there's less time to pay attention to some of the smaller story details is it just me or was the banter between the characters a lot more natural in the first game well now the cast feel was a lot more distant and super punished and world-weary I guess maybe some people like that direction I don't know everything said and done though the main story in quest seems remarkably complete as I write this it's the post game content that seems lacking and one of the best things about KH games is usually that post game content there are side activities and extras to find but from what I can tell there's no Olympus Coliseum style arena battle modes or and this kills me no Sephiroth fight that was something I was super hoping to see in a next-gen Kingdom Hearts game it's sad that optional stuff isn't here and I smell DLC on the horizon in the form of that kind of content and you know maybe some actual Final Fantasy related media in this crossover and big quotes now but the fun of that optional stuff was that it was already in the game you bought and you got to take on those challenges in parallel to upgrading your character in the main story by the time of Colosseum or anything like that gets added through DLC while everyone who really cares is probably gonna have a level 99 Sora right they might have to raise the level cap with DLC as well still there are some extra fights to find and take on and I did somehow get a lot of juice out of this game even after beating the main stuff I'm kind of addicted to KH Kombat and its systems and refining Mysore and his skills and just a sucker for doing that while completing check lists shame I've eat all the extra enemy encounters before getting ultima though now I'm just this God's wandering around a world full of insects squashing everything I see going home to dine at night on gourmet food like an opulent to Lord but so empty on the inside with nobody to challenge me ratatouille bro I just don't need this insane amount of food and and recipes you got I'm sorry it's very charming but even on proud mode I just never needed the buffs from this stuff this is another issue with taking so long to bring out a game your player base has been playing the same game again and again for over a decade like Conan pushing that wheel on repeat for years they're going to be pretty overpowered by the time you offer up a new challenge sorry I'm going off the rails here I didn't really want this to be a mechanical look at the game really I'm not really ready to speak on that I think what's in the game is pretty cool though is Kingdom Hearts 2 awesome combat with added elements here and there that offer up a deluge of options really if I'm gonna go in depth into mechanics with such a mechanically iterative title I'd rather also talk about twos systems and therefore also one's systems first rather I wanted this to be a look at what it's like for a video game to take so long to come out and some of my raw emotions you know and if we are gonna bring up the combat I think it is Kingdom Hearts 3 's ambition to be this epic glorious return that might hurt the gameplay verdicts the most the easiness of it all it's probably the biggest issue you get super-powerful moves pretty easily and I worry that will dissuade some players from getting into the more satisfying stuff landing a good counter and blasting out an aerial combo and regular combat is usually where the actual fun lies rather than mashing into a big cutscene event they don't require you to do much to activate them and once they are they necessitate very limited to no interaction it's as if the game is perhaps a little too preoccupied with making sure all players see just how impressive an epic looking this video game return can be after so long which can overshadow the mechanics that are actually a little more fun to experiment with thankfully this stuff is generally optional but if you're like me and you like to use everything at your disposal to succeed you're gonna find the game a bit easy Kingdom Hearts 2 had a lot of flashy stuff as well but that stuff never felt like it overpowered the gameplay to me as much as the audacious crazy staff does in Kingdom Hearts 3 it's like the game is handing out amazing looking stuff at very little cost and that's not to say you can't do cool stuff with some of the more flashy moves I just wish the game didn't peter out and become so easy so I have more to test my newly accrued skills on by games end you have so much added mobility and options in the moment-to-moment but it feels like they designed Sora to play this way without adequately providing challenges for him to ultimately use them against but I guess we'll always have level 1 only runs right the worry I get with franchises taking so long out and doing these epic returns is the inclination to play it safe Kingdom Hearts has had its subversive moments but cage 3 from my initial reading story wise seems a lot more focused on just giving a conclusion to the expanded universe elements and delivering on a classic adventure as diplomatically as possible with the results as I said being an exciting and engaging finale but one that at least in terms of plot and with it's easy resolutions tries to deliver what I think Square thought the majority of players wanted in most areas and maybe not a lot in the way of things people might not have known they wanted and could have made for even more interesting and memorable stuff and there are bits of the ending which I do think are gonna leave players with a bit of a melancholic feeling and aren't exactly you know super happy in what everybody would want but a lot of the game's plot does feel a little bit safe and I can see why playing it safe an epic may have been a solid idea when a franchise returned faked out like Travis strikes again plays things so subversively and was misunderstood by a lot of people perhaps it was the right time to make an exciting new game they didn't try to rock the boats with anything too crazy and subversive and ultimately it's still a game for me as a pretty jaded Kingdom Hearts fan that delivered on some spectacular moments later on that merged action gameplay and story and artistic talent and glorious presentation with music and production value that only a massive endeavor like this could provide to gideon results the fact that they developed another big home console Kingdom Hearts after so many years and one that doesn't feel like it needed a bow down to any new design trend one that feels like a game from its era I think that deserves some credits you know even if the story pacing and some of the resolutions feel a bit off here in there I respect it for staying the course in a lot of regards and trying to make or feels like a game gameplay and design wise for the people who loved the older titles and love that old design in that sense this is Kingdom Hearts 3 and that feels good to say a final hurrah adventure for a trio a Trinity who if you're my age and like me were a big deal and I use right one last reminder that these characters who left a positive mark on us can still be with us in some capacity even today that's a nice feeling and kind of the message of all of Kingdom Hearts right it's easy to point out how the juxtaposition between the interactions of characters intended to appeal to all ages and the complex tapestry of dark Laura sociated with the original Kingdom Hearts content has always been the culprits for the more awkward series moments but that's also why it kind of works of course it comes off as childish and silly to just take the stories of the Disney worlds at face value I'm not like a huge Disney guy who's seen all of these films but isn't it kind of the point that we interact with these Disney characters from our respective you this for a dose of optimism and innocence before we face the more dark and twisted foreboding staff at the end of these games they help us out but ultimately can only really follow us in spirits to the final challenges in a series about adolescents and coming of age isn't that kind of an analogue for growing up you can't rely on those simplistic and optimistic vibes from when you're young totally forever you're gonna have to face the dark realities of life at some point but those things from our past can still impact us in a positive way and this whole series is a nice reminder of that especially when innocence characters like Donald and Goofy do stick around until the end by your side even in the darkest of times I think that's the positive message Kingdom Hearts is going for right if he played Kage - when you were becoming a teen like me that reassurance was definitely nice back then you know everyone has a dodgy time as a teenager and hey as an adult it's not exactly bad reassurance now ever times ain't exactly perfect that's what I think the overall arcs of these games going to Disney worlds and then facing dark final fantasy style challenges later represents and symbolizes a nice gradient of tone that reflects the gradient of tone in our lives early bits of that gradients lingering on the steeper it gets and that's melancholic stuff to think about right so it's good that if there's one thing Kingdom Hearts is a master of its melancholy that comes across in its music the design of its bosses and the story as a whole and light ending spoilers here at the end of Kingdom Hearts 3 when your buddies Donald and Goofy call on you one last time to wake you up and defeat the bad guy yeah Donald and Goofy are basically the standings for our pasts and the simpler times coming back in the nick of time at the last moment with some reassurance that we're doing the right thing and that Sora and the player can push through and make it to the end it felt like the entire message of this series encapsulated in one moment and I think it's no coincidence that after those events Sora signs off from the trilogy with a new adult resolve we've kind of gone from childhood in the first game to adolescence in the second to adulthood here at the end of this one Sora's demeanor at the end matching that transformation what can I say it's just it's great to play what seems like a fairly completed title by the person who started that exact same series 17 years ago I keep my expectations low these days and I feel like for good reason the previous gen and it's leftovers were filled with half jobs but now with both Travis strikes again and Kingdom Hearts I've been taken aback by how much I've ended up feeling for these franchise comebacks having such a great time after a prior disappointments I'm glad I avoided all the trailers with the new songs in them so I got to hear them for the first time in the I don't think they would have hit me as hard if I hadn't I can't overstate how much I enjoyed the finale to Kingdom Hearts 3 I'm two for two on this franchise comeback so far this year and I'm having a good time guys so catch you again soon you know what's next [Music] you

Channel: undefined

Views: 209,572

Rating: 4.7192397 out of 5

Keywords: kingdom hearts 3, review, analysis, wait, squaresoft, square enix, mickey, sora, donald, goofy, riku, xmenas, finale, tgbs, thegamingbritshow, gamingbrit, kh2, playstation 4, ps4, ps4 pro, xbox one, action game, japanese, rpg, final fantasy, post game, ending, 13 years

Id: Hy2Umwqawyg

Length: 27min 11sec (1631 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 28 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/SuperSceptile2821]

I was honestly shocked he enjoyed the game as much as he did considering how easy it was aside from the last few fights. Having recently found his channel I expected him to dislike it for that.

I’m glad to watch a positive video on the game though. While I definitely would change things here and there, I think the game is absolutely one of the best in the series. Imo it’s second only to 2 FM. If critical mode and the dlc adds that level of challenge, I could easily see it becoming my new favorite.

[u/nintenczas]

I’ve been following him for a while and I knew he would like the game despite so many claiming how dissapointing it is. I’ve been dissapointed by many games but despite a lack of original worlds and shoddy pacing, KH3 never rubbed me off the wrong way and I felt very similar to him in this regard

It’s an action RPG straight from the good old PS2 days with new modern technology. The game doesn’t pander to western audiences nor does it pull any punches when it comes to cutscenes and boss fights. The game also does really well at being an exciting grand adventure with Sora, Donald, and Goofy which is what this series, especially the mainline games are really about

[u/Razhork]

Out of all the reviews I have seen, I didn't expect to resonate the most with TheGamingBritShow, especially considering I've kinda stood polar opposite on his opinions regarding RE6, but here we are.

He does kind of shrug off the pacing a bit towards the end, but if it didn't bother him too much, more power to him. A reason why I am saddened by the pacing (lack of midpoint to be exact) is that by the time I hit Pirates and Big Hero 6, I just kind of wanted to move onto the story.

After finishing the story, I went back to Pirates in particular and realized that there was much more to actually explore than I realized, and I had fun in doing so. Unfortunately I'm 99% sure they're not going to touch upon this with DLC, but on the other hand I'd much rather see a realized Scala Ad Caelum.

Also I find it funny to see YouTube comments like this:

If there's ever been a game I've wanted him to absolutely thrash it's been kh3 wtf even was this review?

and

It's hard to say anything really possitive about it. I've never heard of this guy before, but if he's willing to praise Travis Strikes Again and KH3 in the same sentence... I'm pretty sure we have different tastes altogether

I mean, I'm no stranger to the YouTube comment section, but it's also interesting to see some users in disbelief that the guy likes something they don't. The opposite stands true too. Sometimes it's hard to get discussions going without one or the other.

[u/DiveInCalla]

While I do agree that KH3 has an incredibly barren postgame (even compared to launch KH1 and 2), I feel it's a bit disingenuous to talk about those games as having a lot more "when you bought the game" and not mention at all how much of it was added in Final Mix less than a year later for both games, essentially analogous to the DLC he claims to be a worse solution. Great video though, really enjoyed the positivity after spending a lot of time seeing otherwise.

[u/medven]

I especially like the point that this game is more a sequel to the spin off games than it is to KH2. Everyone who's played all the games understands this but I never really thought about it this way before. KH2 really did resolve most of its plot