Kingdom Hearts 3 is a game I have finally reconciled with. My time with it has been one of the strangest experiences in my journey of giving certain pieces of media an honest ‘second chance’.

My story here isn’t unique. You’ve heard it several times before, or at least the first half of it. I was severely underwhelmed when I played 3 for the first time. I thought it was pretty fun but found myself lacking the proper investment in the narrative. I have gone through this point time and time again reviewing the series lately. When I played 3 I had played birth by sleep on the psp several years prior, KH1, KH2, chain of memories on GBA, and seen some of the cutscenes from 358/2. I played them all quite passively. The stories sort of slipped through my mind, like eating soup with a fork. I was upset that I didn’t feel catered to. This sentiment feels incredibly selfish to me now. I rejected something because it expected too much of me. In hindsight it just expected me to play a few games that are all pretty fun and simple in isolation; 3 was just the intersection of them all. I rejected it because it made me feel as if I experienced the games wrong. I thought about my love for 1 and 2 and felt cheated that I didn’t have a third love that was equally strong. I said the story was convoluted and impossible to understand. A couple years passed and I found myself thinking about the game yet again. I researched the stories, actually played 358/2 days on my DS, and read up on story from the games I didn’t get around to. I replayed 3 and emptied my mind of the mountains influence I had received from Youtube videos that vindicated my negativity. I was ready to exchange my disappointment for satisfaction.

This is something I believe a lot of people don’t grasp as a concept. Just because your first experience with something is negative does not mean it must stagnate and remain that way. You can allow yourself to shift perspective. It’s a chance to give up something bad for something good. This doesn’t make a fickle person, I think it makes an adaptive one. It removes stubbornness. Of course there is nothing wrong with disliking this game or any piece of media, but indulging in those moments of “what if I changed my mind on this thing” is an experience worth diving into. Art is something that we project our experiences onto. Revisiting a piece of art to see how we react differently is a fascinating and sometimes exhilarating way to see how we have grown as a person throughout the years. Kingdom Hearts 3 resonates with me in a much different light since the first time I played it.

When I first played Kingdom Hearts 3 I would say that I was still in the early stages of my adult life. I had just moved into a new home that I was renting. I was working 3 jobs and barely affording bills. It was arguably the most stressful and tedious time in terms of gaining new responsibilities. Kingdom Hearts was a symbol of my childhood. It was so strongly connected the concept of childhood for me. To play the “third” game in this franchise as a tired exhausted adult did not sit perfectly right in my head at the time.
I’m turning 29 in May this year. I have a stable full time job that I enjoy enough. I’m engaged and getting married in October. I’ve reconnected with my family a lot more. Most importantly, I’ve accepted the connections I have lost and the friends that have moved on. Life feels stable. It feels normal. It’s nice! It’s also alarming to think of how many years have gone by. How many people I haven’t talked to since high school.
While playing Kingdom Hearts 3, you will eventually visit Winnie the Pooh as you tend to do in each numbered entry. It’s arguably the worst iteration of the 100 acre woods world. It’s short, repetitive, and you kind of just want to leave by the end. However, I completed it for the first time on this play through. It was here when Pooh asks Sora why he forgot about him. (Possibly paraphrasing a bit). Sora ensures that he will never forget him, but in his head realizes that his connection with him is indeed weaker. He says his goodbyes and leaves. One back, Merlin assures a saddened Sora that what once is lost can always be found again. Sora is on the book again and his connection with Pooh is restored. If I could just call up an old friend that I miss it could just as easily restore a connection that was lost. This is when it clicked for me. Kingdom Hearts 3 is about reconnection. This is why it narratively and thematically resonates with me now.

Kingdom Hearts 3 is about friends who have been separated for well over a decade coming together again. Friends who lost each other. Friends who maybe even lost memories of each other. One specific character near the end even laments that nobody would care if they did not come back: a truly realistic feeling I and many other people feel when we think of sending a message to an old friend. Would they really care? Of course they probably would, but we can’t always assure ourselves of that. Kingdom Hearts is a silly Disney game about the power of hearts and friendship. It’s full of weird stilted dialogue and hilarious moments that make no sense. Of course I recognize the stupidity of what’s on the surface here. Kingdom Hearts is…well it’s about how it makes our hearts feel; the hazy emotional feeling that embodies the writing itself. I enjoy how visually literal the story telling can be. Laughing at it is fun, but I still buy everything it is selling to an extent. I was originally disappointed in Kingdom Hearts 3 because it made me realize I was so disconnected from the part of me that would have adored this long ago. It made me feel like my childhood was officially over during time where that feeling was pretty fresh. Now that I have accepted the past and embraced the future, I find the feeling of embracing this world and its characters cathartic and exciting. There is nothing like this series. No series (besides Metal Gear?) loves the dedication of its most hardcore fans this much. Usually they are the ones who leave disappointed when they aren’t rewarded for their efforts. Here instead we find a game that returns the same amount of love to its fans that it has received. Maybe a little too much. It ain’t perfect believe me, but at this point I don’t think I am capable of seeing it as anything other than monumental and loving. My third time playing it really brought it home for me. I love this game. I feel like it always loved me too but I didn’t have the time or patience for it. I have to cherish that a game this weird can exist today.

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To discuss some more literal aspects of the game itself: I believe 3 has the best Disney worlds in the whole series now. Not exactly because of the movie selections though, I mean the level design. They’re all really fun to explore. The world selection isn’t incredibly special, but there are plenty of highlights and none of them are bad to play. Every entry has pretty awful worlds, and the worst one here is the Frozen world (imo) and yet compared to the other games, it’s still not that bad. It does a good job threading story beats in between worlds as well. 2 is still a better overall game to me, but even I need to admit that you go a long time in that game without any interesting story advancements taking place. The combat in 3 is fantastic once you disable keyblade transformation animations and strategically ignore attraction attacks. Its snappy and flashy. It’s really fun!
There is plenty to criticize here but 3 has its own identity and I’m stoked to see it in a positive light amongst the rest of the franchise. I know development must have been rough for 3. The engine swap, threading together all of the games to bring closure to this specific saga, combining ideas from every game into one without making it messy and unfocused. Not to mention modern day Disney’s eye looming over their shoulders. The pressure to please fans had to be astronomical. I get why this ended up not being for a lot of people, but I’m happy to switch sides and appreciate this for the monumental achievement it is. Kingdom Hearts 3 is a special game. This series is special. I can replay this trilogy forever and be happy, but I am overwhelmingly excited that this was not the end. I’m happy that it will continue to grow up with me as it has been this whole time.