#Kingdom hearts 3 dlc movie#
#Kingdom hearts 3 dlc series#

#Kingdom hearts 3 dlc series#

The reward simply isn’t worth it, similarly to Kingdom Hearts Coded, which contains minimal story Dream Drop Distance, which delivers series-altering story beats until the very end and Union X, which reserves some of the most mature and compelling storytelling in the series in tiny segments spread across hundreds of hours of mundane level-grinding. It’s also locked behind some of the most difficult battles in the series, which will require the average player to grind for two to three times the level they finished the game at. But I can’t say the direction is one I’m excited for.

#Kingdom hearts 3 dlc movie#

The one sign of incoming change and risk-taking comes in the form of a short secret movie at the end of the DLC’s Limit Cut episode. But it’s a short, unsatisfying battle that accentuates the game’s odd characterization of someone much less confident and assertive than she was in the first game, offering little in hopes of her treatment suddenly getting better after this milestone. At one point, Square Enix finally delivers what fans have been asking since the series’ inception: the chance to play as Kairi, Kingdom Hearts’ usually damseled heroine. But it wasn’t lost on me that you mostly get to play as the men while the women help perform a defensive attack. The graphics are stunning, the music is exemplary, and there is emotional significance to this fight for fans. You’ll make a finishing move as a character and then get switched to another one with a slightly different moveset. The best moment in Re: Mind is a battle in which almost every main character comes together to create a powerful, visual spectacle of a fight. The DLC chooses to do this and provide more questions without trusting in its audience enough to provide answers, and considering it’s been almost 15 years since the last mainline entry, it’s frustrating.Īnd, once again, after all the last few years of criticism regarding the series’s treatment of women, they are still shafted in this DLC. Convoluted it may often be, but incomprehensible it ultimately isn’t. Not only does this turn characters into mere vehicles for exposition, but it also feels like it isn’t confident enough in its audience’s ability to understand it.

Conversations about how hearts, vessels and souls work in this universe are regurgitated. Instead of making use of the fact that Re: Mind’s narrative takes place during a segment in which the entire series’ main cast is united for the first time by allowing you to play as each cast member, the game gives you the option of either playing as a few of them or as Sora, highlighting its reluctance to let him go even momentarily.Īnother indication of Kingdom Hearts III’s aversion to taking any risk is the constant reiteration of already established lore points. And unlike the aforementioned show, Kingdom Hearts III is determined to focus on him above everyone else, dragging down its most interesting subplots and squandering opportunities for rich character development in the process. It’s also still largely from Sora’s perspective like Piper Chapman in Orange is the New Black, he’s the main character who is far less interesting than every person around him. But that perspective doesn’t actually add much here-it’s mostly just re-doing repetitive boss battles and rewatching cutscenes that have exhausted their emotional weight. It’s essentially a retelling of the end of Kingdom Hearts III similar to route B in NieR: Automata, in which slightly different events happen and are witnessed from a different perspective. Re: Mind is, in theory, supposed to address what many fans were left wanting from Kingdom Hearts III-a little less Disney, a little more diving into the franchise’s fascinating and at times convoluted lore. And its only planned DLC, Re: Mind, only serves to further emphasize Kingdom Hearts’ current dilemma: that it lacks the desire to make the changes and take the risks that have made other series, like Square Enix’s own Final Fantasy, still exciting to follow after all these years. But 15 years later its long-awaited third mainline entry, Kingdom Hearts III, feels like one of the series’ most conservative installments. From letting you play as over a dozen characters with wildly different gameplay styles, to a card-based battle system, Kingdom Hearts was a series that took risks for a while. Classic Disney characters and settings mixed with original, Final Fantasy-esque characters? It was like nothing that had ever been done before. Kingdom Hearts initially garnered widespread attention all those years ago for its outlandish premise.