I recently finished Kingdom Hearts 3, and in doing so finally witnessed the conclusion to this eighteen-year-long franchise, a franchise with so many twists and turns it’s like the Jersey Turnpike of J-RPGs. I’ve played more Kingdom Hearts games than most and, as of today, I can safely say that accounts for nothing. That's right; it gives me zero advantage in comprehending the plot. The two entries I missed ended up being the most essential, so I may as well have gone in blind.

See how many people you know in this image. I did well until the lower ledge.

There's a few reasons I put this off for a while. For one, many of Kingdom Hearts most prominent fans in my close social circle had middling to negative things to say. Even friend of our site, BobaAndGames, had this to say on Twitter:

Coming from someone with cats named Sora and Riku, "Series Killer" is a brutal condemnation. And after finishing Kingdom Hearts 3 myself, I see where they're all coming from. Was it good? Sure. Worth ten-years-of-waiting good? Not so much.

Rather than review the whole game and tread the same ground many critics have covered better already, it occured to me each world tells its own self-contained story. Why not treat them as such? Here’s a stack rank of every world in Kingdom Hearts 3, with an accompanied rating out of 10 and other crucial information.

Spoilers ahead.

Some general criticisms before we go:

  • Everyone in this game repeats themselves way too often.
  • The Organization seems to show up just to insult Sora and remind you they exist.
  • Where my Final Fantasy bros at? ‘Cuz they weren’t here.
  • Neither were most Disney villains.
  • I do not want to "get it memorized."

7. Arendelle

4/10

Main characters from franchise in the party: No (I refuse to count the Ice Giant)

Costume change: No

The day I spotted Arendelle on the world map, I was excited. From Elsa’s mountaintop castle, to the frozen harbor, to the town itself, there’s lot of potential in Frozen’s setting. Even more promising, perhaps, is Elsa as an ally in your party, slingling blizzard spells alongside Sora-and-pals. Her skillset fits into a fantasy adventure game perfectly.

I trust you can understand my disappointment, then, when none of these things happened.

You spend all of Arendelle climbing a mountain. Then a cutscene plays and you fall down the mountain. You climb it again. A cutscene plays. Now you’re sledding down the mountain. Time to climb it again!

But don’t worry, that’s not all that happens. Larxene is here now! And she... throws you in an ice labyrinth!

And once you get out, you get to climb the mountain again.

Don’t make eye contact, Sora. No sudden movements either.

It feels almost misleading to call this world Arendelle when you never see Arendelle itself. All you see is its North Mountain range instead, from every conceivable angle and elevation. I didn’t expect to run around Arendelle with all the freedom of a GTA map, but Corona gave me at least the town square and a harbor. Arendelle doesn’t even show me closed front gates.

The bummers only continue from there. You get to see Elsa’s Ice Palace from the outside, but you don’t get to go in. You’ll run into everyone you’d expect to see from Frozen, but only the Ice Giant joins your party. The sledding mini-game here is okay, but there’s an extended section spent putting Olaf's body back together that feels like an afterthought. One could argue this is a game for kids and you’d be right, but I’d still say kids deserve more from their Disney game vacation.

This sledding mini-game is alright. Once. Maybe twice.

Because Sora has less direct contact with this cast of characters than the any other world, a heartfelt goodbye from the cast felt entirely out of place. So many events take place removed from Anna or Elsa, in some other realm Larxene opens up. Even the boss fight of Arendelle takes place in some formless void, far away from the main characters while the final events of the film are happening.

It’s some kinda ice wolf. It’s fine.

I was relieved when Arendelle ended. Never again.

6. Olympus

’Sup Herc.

5/10

Main characters from franchise in party: Yes

Costume change: No

Hercules must be a favorite Disney movie for Square-Enix, because this marks Sora and friend’s like, fifth return trip to Herctown.

There’s not much to say about Olympus, but that’s not too surprising; it’s the first proper world Sora visits, so it acts as a tutorial trip. The game even has the gaul to put up a splash screen with Kingdom Hearts II.9 as you arrive. The town of Athens itself feel annoyingly constrained, but it helps make Olympus feel more open and spacious once you reach the summit.

Compress, release. Frank Lloyd Wright would be proud.

Best part of this stage is the final boss, where you fight all the Titans at once. Most Kingdom Hearts 1 players experienced many battles against these Titans, as they were optional challenge bosses back then. I imagine it’s cathartic, then, to trash all of them at the same time now. I’d say it’s a good benchmark of how far Sora’s come since his debut, but Kingdom Hearts 3 goes out of the way to remind you Sora’s lost all his power. Frequently. So scratch that.

It’s not a bad opening world, but I wasn’t impressed either.

5. Monstropolis

7/10

Main characters from franchise in the party: Yes

Costume change: Yes

Monstropolis comes in at a slightly-above-average ranking. It delivers on the promising setting -- for the most part -- and puts both Mike and Sully in your party as allies.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy arriving in monster form kicks things off with a fun start. It’s not long afterward you run into Mike, Sully, and Boo in the main lobby. Rather than the usual setup of Sora-and-friends bumbling into the plot of said film, this one instead takes place after the events Monsters, Inc.. Mike and Sully run things now, and they’re entertaining Boo when those pesky Unversed show up.

If like me, you did not play Dream Drop Distance, you may be asking what an Unversed is right now, or who this Kylo Ren look-a-like Vanitas is.

Don’t worry about it.

After a battle in the workstation, Monstropolis stays strong with a rail-sliding sequence through the door conveyor assembly. I wish there was slightly more to it, such as alternate paths or more options, but it's an enjoyable rail-shooter sequence nonetheless.

Once you get trapped by Randall in the warehouse though, the stage starts to slog. Lots of formless, uninspired corridors with occasional traps take over. We also repeat the same damn cutscene so many times I thought I was in Punxsutawney. It goes like this:

  • There’s a closed door.
  • Mike and Sully explain laughter is a source of energy.
  • Time to make Boo laugh until the door opens.
  • Kill unversed for a while.

I can live with repeated open-the-door sequences, but Mike and Sully explaining the core conceit of Monsters Inc. for a fourth time makes it feel like a rough draft of the script made it through post-production and no one ever proofread it. Considering ten years of development went into this, I can’t believe that is the case. (A brief aside -- this also happens when Sora declares he’ll save Aqua, which happens twice throughout the game and everyone acts surprised the second time.)

The final boss is a giant blob with a few fun surprises, but it lacks the spectacle of others. It’s mostly either blocking or dodging a rush attack, then whacking away until the next one starts. He’s got a rather annoying transformation where he blows you back into angry slime arms, but it was nothing Simba couldn’t take care of for me.

Slime guy is okay, but it’s a tad disappointing so many final bosses don’t relate much to the world itself.

Monstropolis starts strong, then peters out, but it remained captivating enough to rank slightly above average.

4. Kingdom of Corona

7/10

Main characters from franchise in the party: Yes

Costume change: No

Tangled is an excellent movie. My personal bias for the film meant this stage had an impossible bar to reach, so it’s commendable it got close at all.

Sora and the boys plant themselves firmly in the events of the film this time, posing as Flynn’s crew. There’s a lot of killing heartless in various forest clearings, an event which becomes somewhat trite, but the occasional hair-swing with Rapunzel or quirky outdoor antic keeps things entertaining.

Team Flynn, represent.

You escort Rapunzel to Corona, which unlike Arendelle, you actually get to see! It may only be the street, a square, and the harbor, but it’s enough to make you feel like you’ve visited a locale from the movie. You'll also play a dancing mini-game here in the town square -- a short, fun diversion before you enter the final leg.

It's the final section where Corona falls somewhat flat. After reaching Town, plot happens and Sora and the gang go right back the way they came. The heartless spawns are new, but you’re essentially just going back to the tower you started at, through the same areas you’ve already been. It’s a slog through dense packs of heartless with little new to see.

You don’t get to go inside Rapunzel’s tower, but you will fight outside of it frequently.

Fortunately, the final boss here is one of the better ones. The area around Rapunzel’s tower is huge, and this boss will force you to use all that space. You'll have to run up Rapunzel's tower to smack it, leap off the walls, dodge falling bombs. Not bad, really.

Corona slots in above average, but not quite in our top three.

After clearing the stage, you can return to dance with Rapunzel as many times as you wish. For me, that was twice.

3. San Fransokyo

8/10

Main characters from franchise in the party: Yes

Costume change: Yes, if you count an AR visor

This world made me really want to see Big Hero 6. I'm behind on my Disney films.

San Fransokyo is something of an open world stage, which it has in common with our #1 entry. You get to slide around railings, run up buildings, and fly through AR training simulations Hiro’s set up.

I get the feeling this world takes place after the events of the film, based on context. It seems rather clear Sora and the gang arrive after some major life-altering events have already occured. There’s a reference to Shugyo that caught me off guard, and left me curious if it was in the film or not. It's really not the sort of thing you expect to hear in a Disney movie, but what a great deep cut.

Overall, this is a fairly enjoyable world, albeit tricky to navigate at first. There’s heartless and nobodies waiting on every rooftop, just about, and they’ll often ambush you on your way up, too. It leads to many mid-air battles, but this setting allows Sora to make use of his freeform tactics -- all the moves that require spinning off a pole or jumping of a wall -- with more frequency than previous ones.

Slidin’ around the freeway railings makes for a good time.

There’s a fairly enjoyable shoot ‘em up sequence on Baymax’s back near the end, arguably more so than the gummi ship fights.

The biggest problem I have with this stage is how it feels very light in content, despite the size of the map. You don’t spend long here at all, making it feel like a brief stop on your road to the conclusion. It also sure feels like there’s a crucial scene or two missing from the story here. Once the Darkubes appear, a cutscene plays where every Big Hero 6 member is out in the world, chasing down their own Darkube like you are. Once you’re dropped back in, suddenly they're all caught and in need of saving. What happened? They all lost at the same time off-screen?

The actual act of breaking them out is a series of simple puzzles, but how they all ended up in there is a mystery.

After completing this world’s story, I did spend some time gliding around the city, which is more than I can say for previous worlds. You’re all right, San Fransokyo.

2. Toy Box

9/10

Main characters from franchise in the party: Yes

Costume change: Yes

Toy Box is exceptional.

Right off the bat, Sora, Donald, and Goofy’s toy forms for the world are brilliant. The sense of scale, the Randy Newman music, exploring Andy’s Room -- I didn’t think I was nostalgic for Toy Story, but this stage hit me with the same power the first Kingdom Hearts did years ago. The promise of what the franchise can deliver felt alive and well here.

Andy's Room and the surrounding neighborhood are filled with so many incredible, miniscule details that I was content to simply wander. All sense of fufilling a goal fell to the wayside as I just enjoyed feeling microscopic, lost in a suburban street.

After exploring the neighborhood, you’ll spend the rest of the world in the toy store. Things wane slightly here, as the team bounces from storefront to storefront in search of lost friends. However, during this whole section Sora can ride toy mechs, which makes the stage less of a slog. On critical+ difficulty, in fact, these things became a life-saver, as they effectively gave me an extra life bar the heartless had to burn through. Bouncing from bot to bot became a key strategy for survival.

Critical+ difficulty gets outrageous when every Heartless has their own Gundam.

The stage finishes out with a UFO battle in a child’s playpen. It's a relatively simple fight, but like the rest of the stage, the setting and style really sell it.

Woody also does more damage than anyone’s ever done to the Organization with this savage burn, the kind only a living toy could deliver.

Jesus. Woody. Dial it back, man.

Toy Box is the first stage to fill me with a childlike wonder. At the onset, I felt like I was ten again, and Toy Story had just come out yesterday. For a while, I thought it would take my top spot. It got beat by...

1. The Caribbean

9/10

Main characters from franchise in the party: Yes

Costume change: Yes

I was skeptical of a return to The Caribbean at first, but wow. What a stage.

Did you play Sea of Thieves? It’s kinda like that.

Sora returns to The Caribbean just in time for the events of At World’s End. After rescuing Jack from Davy Jones’s Locker and reuniting with the cast, the game introduces you to some right proper ship combat. Heartless ships roam the seas and it’s up to you to put ‘em down and set things right.

It’s not unlike the ship combat from Assassin’s Creed, but with the expected Kingdom Hearts 3 flair. Point, then give ‘em the broadsides. Occasionally, the boat’ll let you do some wacky stuff, like fly into the sky and come careening down like a cannonball. Or, sometimes, your cannons light on fire and automatically blast away for a while. Homing cannons? Yeah, it’s got those, too.

So, scenes from a film, check. Jack Sparrow on your team? Check, plus a wicked team attack. There’s a lot already going for The Caribbean as a stage, but to top it off it’s also a world you actually get to explore. After Jack disappears into a pile of white crabs (don’t ask) you’re turned loose to explore the seas at your leisure. There's a handful of islands to explore, and while I don't love the underwater combat, adding a swimming mechanic here means there's all sorts of hidden caves and chasms. I really felt like I was exploring uncharted seas.

Everything caps off with a fight against both the Kraken and Davy Jones himself, all right in the midst of the climactic ending of At World’s End.

For better or worse, this is the only fight against a proper Disney antagonist except the Titans.

The Caribbean capitalizes on the promise of Kingdom Hearts more than any other other stage, easily.

And that's it for our Disney Adventures, sans one I'm about to throw serious shade at. But what about the rest of the stuff in Kingdom Hearts 3? Don't worry, we have a section for that, too. I call it:

Barely-a-World Worlds

These are all worlds and locales you'll visit that aren't technically Disney locations, or you spend such a short amount of time in them they aren't really fully explorable locations. Rather than give these a rating, I'll just list them and say a few words.

Twilight Town

Main characters from franchise in the party: Sort of?

Costume change: No

This stage seems to exist purely for Nostalgia's sake. I suppose that isn't entirely a bad thing, but your options are extremely limited here.

You really don’t do a whole lot in Twilight Town. There’s a boss fight against a heartless swarm, a fight you’ll repeat many times elsewhere, and then you’re free to explore.

After a visit to the Old Mansion from Kingdom Hearts 2 for some story, you’re free to leave this world forever.

Sort of.

You’ll come back here for 100 Acre Wood, and to help Remy from Ratatouille cook in his Bistro. But you can access the Bistro from any save point, so you really shouldn’t come all the way back to Twilight Town for it.

Cooking with Remy makes for an okay diversion. Hunting down all the ingredients does not.

100 Acre Wood

Main characters from franchise in the party: Sorta

Costume change: No

The same mini-game three times: Yes

Thought I forgot about this one, huh? Honestly, I wish Square-Enix had.

I’ll be blunt. Why is this here?

I enjoyed the 100 Acre Wood in Kingdom Hearts 2, but this repeat visit is a disaster. You play a Puzzle Bobble style mini-game three times, Sora says goodbye, and you’re out.

Far as I can tell, the only thing to change in all these mini-games is which 100 Acre Wood resident jumps in to help out.

And no Eeyore! What the hell?

To answer my rhetorical question from before, 100 Acre Woods does serve a function, I suspect. It’s right next to the Bistro. These mini-games exist for you to quickly amass vegetables for the cooking mini-game with Remy.

What a waste of Winnie The Pooh. You deserved better, Pooh Bear.

Darkness Lake

Playable character: Riku

Person in need of saving: Aqua

This is probably not the technical name, but a considerable amount of activity happens by this lake. And by "considerable," I mean you fight the same boss twice and watch many cutscenes.

Once you beat the heartless swarm for a second time here, you finally get to fight Aqua. I have no idea who Aqua is (which probably clues you in on which games I missed) but she seems pretty important, and the boss fight against her sells her strength well. There’s lots of teleporting, doppelgangers, magic crystals -- she really puts on the pressure.

Then you’re done. No more lake.

The fight itself is a good one, but even without the same affection for Aqua the rest of the community has, I can’t help but feel this battle is flimsily established. Mickey and Riku wander about for a while, screw up, and leave. Wouldn’t it make more sense for Dark Aqua to be the reason they fail initially, thus setting the stage for a future showdown?

No such luck.

But at least the fight is cool.

The Land of Departure

Playable character: Aqua

Comatose body in a chair who is not Roxas: Ventus

I assume this area holds significance in those two Kingdom Hearts games I never played, because there’s a lengthy cutscene dedicated to entering it.

There’s a boss fight here against Sora Kylo (Vanitas) from the Monstropolis stage, and the player takes control of Aqua in the battle. It’s fun, and its nice Aqua got the spotlight, but then she loses in a post-battle cutscene. Just can't let anyone but Sora have the spotlight, can we? Once you best him, there’s a few cutscenes and you leave forever.

Land of Departure, indeed.

The Keyblade Graveyard

Amount of keyblades: Too damn high

Characters from franchise in party, other than the usual trio: Shockingly, no.

A classic Kingdom Hearts setting makes a return.

There’s a repeat of the famous “thousand heartless” battle from Hollow Bastion to kick things off, but it’s far less impressive this time around. Part of that is inherent to tech advancements; putting a lot of enemies on screen at once isn’t the achievement it once was. Even putting that aside, however, the sequence fails to capitalize on what’s promised.

Okay, bombing all these heartless while riding Big Thunder Mountain was pretty fun.

You and all the friends you’ve collected along the way stand side-by-side, ready to battle the tide. The scene ends, and... suddenly Sora’s alone with Donald and Goofy, like always. All your pals vanish while you do your thing. Despite all the promise of battling alongside your friends, they're shunted to the sidelines.

There’s also an extended sequence where Sora is granted power from the Keyblade Masters of old. As you mash on triangle, keyblades fly out with usernames attached. At first, I thought they were random PSN account names, but it ends up they’re all from some contest in a mobile game.

It’s a neat set-piece, but I had to ask myself what it was all in service of. Great for those contest winners, I guess, but attaching usernames to the Keyblade-wielders-of-old detracts from the scene, in my opinion. I mean, if there was no name there, I’d assume it was the nameless spirits of fallen wielders helping me out. Now I know “Bonglord420X” was a famous Keyblade wielder, and the scene substantially loses its impact.

After a ton of cutscenes, you’ll end up right back here for more. First, you have to make a detour to...

The Final World

How many drugs I must've taken: All of them

Disclaimer: This world might not exist

This peyote trip is a bizarre diversion. You’ll spend your time here running about, collecting copies of Sora as he runs around, glides, falls, warps. Whatever animations Square-Enix had on hand. My artistic side says there’s a theme here I’m not quite seeing, and the cynical side says Square-Enix came up with a world they could build without having to make too many new assets.

"Let me face, let me face, let me face myself," indeed.

If you talk to every floating star here during the first Sora-collectathon, you’ll get a few special scenes. Also collecting 222 and 333 Sora copies will net you an HP boost. But please, don’t do it. Your time is more valuable than mine.

The Skein of Severance

Other keyblade wielders in party: Finally, yes.

Characters brought back with no setup: One

Finally. Finally, you get to square off against the parade of robed goons who showed up to insult you a few times and run away.

You’ll fight all the Organization XIII members in groups of three here. Some of them run away after being defeated, while others will go down for the count. You’ll also finally join your other companions in these encounters, fighting alongside Mickey, Riku, Kairi, Axel and the like. All in all, this was an enjoyable gauntlet of battles. If you’ve played the previous entries (and still remember them all these years later) you’ll have a slight leg up, as the Organization members use many similar attacks. Just, you know, you’ll be dodging two or more at once now.

Plot-wise, however, the endgame gauntlet is... unfulfilling. Kingdom Hearts 3 quickly wraps up all the loose ends left dangling over the series long, fractured history, and in doing so short-shifts most of them. Aqua, Ventus, and Tera get lots of set-up before their reunion. While it was nice to see the trio I actually know reunite -- Axel, Roxas, and Xion -- it would’ve been nice to see more of their struggles before their big moment. Roxas's revival has several cutscenes dedicated to it, but Xion appears seemingly fully formed out of the ether. I wouldn't be surprised if her revival is explained somewhere else, but certainly isn't here.

And Kairi.

Oof.

Poor Kairi.

Kingdom Hearts just never does this girl right.

Manga-Kairi will always be superior to Game-Kairi.

Scala ad Caleum

Latin translation: Stairway to Heaven

Led Zeppelin songs used: None

I don't know what's happening anymore.

Time for the final boss. Taken on its own, it’s pretty good. There's a fight against these spectral versions of the Organization members, followed by the final showdown with Xehanort. He's got an outrageous amount of forms; every few life bars he drags you to some new location, with a whole new gamut of attacks to dodge. Most of them are enjoyable, but I don’t love the underwater section. There’s also a portion of the fight near the tail end where Xehanort steals your light and becomes invincible until you get it back. Don’t love that either.

The opening section of the final battle is really the strongest. Xehanort flips gravity on you periodically, bending Scala ad Caleum around you like you’re trapped in the mirror dimension from Doctor Strange. It’s pretty awesome.

Until he takes you underwater. Can’t stress that enough.

Once Xehaort takes off his armor, there's one last leg of the battle left.

The End

We made it.

After that, it's over. Kingdom Hearts 3 complete. Sit back and watch about a half hour of cutscenes.

Everything seemed pretty straightforward during the musical montage, but the post-credits scene was absolutely impenetrable. Zero comprehension of what happened there.

Word on the Traverse Town streets is you may want to play the mobile game to get what’s going on here. I didn’t, so I can’t help you, or myself.

To sum up, Kingdom Hearts 3 is worth your time, but if you’re a fan, brace yourself. There’s bound to be some dangling plot thread resolved in a break-neck, haphazard way that’ll only blindside and frustrate you.

This is a curious case where, paradoxically, I think the less familiar you are with the full scope of Kingdom Hearts the more enjoyable Kingdom Hearts 3 will be. Without the expectation some magnum opus a decade in the making will crescendo to a close, it’s just a young boy going on a magical adventure through Disney lands with his Disney pals.

And on that front, Kingdom Hearts 3 succeeds.

Mostly.