Kingdom Hearts III E3 Impression

As crazy and confusing as the story is, I have an admiration for the Kingdom Hearts series as it has grown. Now with the third numbered game (but not the third game in the series) coming in early 2019, it was time to dive back into a world that’s part Final Fantasy, part Disney, and all action-RPG. As the proud owner of a Heartless crest tattoo, I simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get my hands on the game prior to its release next year.

The demo was divided into two distinct stages. The first I dove into pitted me against a familiar foe: the Final Fantasy summon Titan! With a rocky exterior and a grumpy temper, this guy was chucking rocks down on me as I scaled a massive cliffside. Sora and company are able to run up walls which glowed slightly — a great idea until I realized Titan wasn’t going to stop throwing things at me and boy do I suck at dodging. Finally, I made it up several cliff walls, only to be stopped by a wave of Heartless! I proceeded to gleefully smack the heck out of them before finally facing off against Titan.

Well, “facing off” might be a bit of a stretch, as he was huge! I was facing his foot, which I proceeded to whack repeatedly with my Keyblade. I may have become a little too enamoured with smacking it with my Keyblade and activating a variety of special attacks, because eventually the game gently reminded me that I should probably attack the other foot too… oops. Finally, I took both down and was able to hop up and attack Titan’s head. Once I damaged it enough I unlocked a super special attack and UNLEASHED THE DISNEY MAGICAL EXPRESS TRAIN on him! I choo choo’ed through the air, shooting off fireworks in a rapid volley. Occasionally Titan would raise his fist and Goofy would call out a warning in his endearingly warbly tone, but if I shot enough fireworks at it, the fist would return to its placid position and I could continue pelting away at his head. I managed to take down the summon, and the demo ended.

I then jumped into the second stage, Toy Box, where I was transformed into toys! Then some darn Heartless had to pop in and ruin the cool intro.  So, I beat them up.  With that out of the way, I was met by some beloved figurines, including Woody and Buzz Lightyear, whose laser had become a real laser! They explained Andy had not come to visit in some time and the other toys had disappeared; we decided it was time to head to the local toy store to discover what the heck was going on, so we hopped out the window to the front lawn and discovered… you guessed it… more heartless.  Time to bust out some magic and special abilities. Combat felt smooth, like an old friend I hadn’t spent enough time with recently. With the front lawn tidied of bad guys, we headed off. When we arrived, there was some plot reveal tying the game to some of the spinoffs, then we launched into a GIANT MECH BATTLE.

Well, giant is relative. We’re toys after all, so the mechs were only a couple feet in size, but we brawled with punches, kicks, rockets, lasers, and bull rushes until I successfully KOed the final foe. At that point, the second demo ended, and I was left only wanting more. Now I just need to find the time to play I.5, II.5 and II.8 before Kingdom Hearts III arrives on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on January 29, 2019. That’s only seven games, totally doable!