Update 2 – Time played: 15 hours 18 minutes

It’s Progressive Looks time, with more Kingdom Hearts 3 content! I kind of got sucked into this game a little bit, but I managed to tear myself away long enough to write this. I’ve played up to Arendelle, the Frozen world, which I feel like is about the mid-game, so I can say I’ve seen most of what the game has to offer at this point. As such, this is going to be the last update for this Progressive Looks series before I start writing the full review.

Right now there’s two major things that have been nagging at me about KH3, and they aren’t good things. First of all, as of right now almost nothing has happened in the story. I know that previous KH games don’t have much connection to the overall plot inside the Disney worlds, but I still felt like things were moving along at a decent pace with things like KH1 tying everything to Disney princesses being the 7 Princesses of Heart and KH2 sprinkling things like Sora killing Organization XIII member Xaldin at Beast’s Castle into the Disney worlds. In KH3 so far it seems like nobody has any idea why they’re at the worlds they travel to (Sora even says this in the Tangled world), and hardly anything has happened even in between worlds. It’s just been go to Disney world, go through the world, go to next Disney world. The second thing that’s eating away at me is that the voice acting is horrendous. There’s a few exceptions obviously, such as Lea, but characters like Mickey Mouse sound so bad that you never want to hear them open their mouth again. How do you screw up Mickey Mouse of all characters?

The gameplay is still fun, but I haven’t felt like there’s been any progression of difficulty as of right now. What I’m trying to say is that the game is very easy, and I’ve been playing on the hardest difficulty setting, Proud Mode. You’re able to do cool things with Keyblade attacks, magic, and Shotlocks, but the Triangle button is just too powerful with Attraction Flow, Attraction Flow being commands that summon various Disneyland rides for big flashy attacks. The issue with Attraction Flow commands is that they’re very long, they deal a ton of damage, and that you’re invincible throughout the entire attack animation. They’re just too good. Having said that however, after a while I avoided using Attraction Flow altogether and I still find the game to be super easy. Hopefully the difficulty cranks up in the later worlds and the endgame. With regards to the Gummi Ship, I’m happy to report that KH3 has done a great job evolving the Gummi Ship. Instead of purely having on-rails space shooter missions like in KH1 and KH2, Gummi Ship segments in KH3 throw you into a wide area with tons of opportunity for exploration to find Gummi Ship parts and crafting materials. There’s a ton of optional missions spread throughout the areas as well, with the familiar on-rails gameplay we’ve seen in past games. I like this choice, as if you didn’t like the Gummi Ship missions in past games you can choose to just fly straight to the worlds themselves and subject yourself to the odd boss fight, or the Gummi Ship fiends can seek out every mission and treasure they can get their hands on.

The worlds themselves have been a joy to explore so far, with the Toy Box being the most impressive world I’ve ever seen in a KH game. There’s a lot of charm within the worlds, and they all have collectibles in the form of Lucky Emblems. Each Disney world has a bunch of Mickey Mouse shaped symbols littered through them that you can take pictures of with your camera. They’re worth finding as well, as they can get you good pieces of equipment, and I’ve also heard that they’re a requirement for the game’s secret ending.

With that, it is time to draw this Progressive Looks series to a close, as well as my Progressive Looks marathon for the Kingdom Hearts series. This has been such a ride for me and the fact that this culminated in a game that I have been waiting 13 years for is just icing on the cake for me. I want to thank everyone that’s been reading along since my first KH2 post, everyone who’s just clicked on my KH3 content now, and everyone who’s been liking, sharing, and following me on Al Unlocked and my social media throughout this whole thing! The true finale of my KH marathon will be my KH3 review, but I wanted to get that out of the way now. It might be a while until I do another marathon, but if anyone has any ideas for my next one feel free to hit me up! I’m always open to suggestions. Stay tuned!

Kingdom Hearts 3

• Part 2
• Part 1
• Part 0