Kingdom Hearts III
THE ‘THIRD’ CHAPTER IN THE STRANGEST MOVIE TIE-IN OF THEM ALL MARTIN KITTS
PUBLISHER SQUARE ENIX / DEVELOPER SQUARE ENIX / RELEASE DATE OUT NOW / COST £49.99/$59.99
Blending Disney’s
family-friendly
characters with a
plot that even the
Final Fantasy series
might dismiss as
being a little too dense and brooding,
we’ve finally reached the end of the
line for Sora, Donald, Goofy and their
bewildering array of tormentors.
In the 14 years since the last
numbered instalment was released,
Kingdom Hearts has encompassed
numerous spinoffs and remixes, each
adding further twists to a sprawling
lore that all but the most dedicated
fans might have trouble keeping up
with. Being the game that’s intended
to wrap things up as completely as
possible, Kingdom Hearts III calls on a
huge cast of characters and hours of
flashback-heavy cutscenes that only
serve to muddy the waters.
Sod’s lore
There are characters who are stuck in
dimensions, characters who live inside
other characters, minor enemies with
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godlike powers, reformed villains who
shouldn’t be trusted and, of course, a
great many movie-based worlds that
exist in unexplained isolation. Arm
yourself with a wiki and prepare for a
whole lot of pausing and searching
during each major cinematic, or just
accept that the bad guys wear black
trenchcoats and are distinguishable
only by their haircuts, the good
guys are cartoons and everybody is
desperate to have a long, slow talk
about things that make little sense.
It becomes much more
comprehensible when Sora and
company are adventuring in the main
game worlds, since they’re based on
some of Disney and Pixar’s biggest
hits. Here the subplots are generally
lifted from the films, with sequences
that could be word-for-word retreads
of key scenes, were it not for the
insertion of our heroes, and they work
well as an incentive to keep plodding
through the less interesting bits.
The movie Tangled is reworked to
put Sora, Donald and Goofy up front,
escorting Rapunzel to the castlelantern show before battling her evil
mother who, like all the villains of
the silver screen, turns out to have
been possessed by the monstrous
Heartless (who are in turn controlled
by the trenchcoat mob). Frozen also
gets the Kingdom Hearts treatment,
including a rendition of ‘Let It Go’, and
there are trips to the worlds of Big
Hero 6, Winnie The Pooh, Pirates Of
The Caribbean and others, complete
with a stellar voice cast.
The game’s visual tone changes in
each area to blend with the look of
whichever movie the party is visiting,
switching from the toon-shaded
pastels of 100 Acre Wood to the
green-tinted realism of Port Royal.
Sora, Donald and Goofy even change
into plastic figures when visiting the
Toy Story world, and furry beasts in
Monsters Inc. The attention to detail is
fantastic, even if the worlds are devoid
of life other than the main characters
and the creatures they battle.
Combat forms the vast majority of
the action, and the emphasis is on the
visual spectacle rather than depth orshort
cutWHAT IS IT?
Japanese RPG meets
Walt Disney wearing a
leather trenchcoat.
WHAT’S IT LIKE?
It’s got a bit of pretty
much everything.
WHO’S IT FOR?
Veterans of the series
or households with
young Disney fans.