Kingdom Hearts 3 Impressions (as of first week)

My thoughts about KH3 as of this moment (4 days after release):

Pros:
I really enjoyed the combat, I felt like every option was strong to at least some degree and that made everything feel really good. I love keyblade switching and how you can save certain forms for later fights. I love almost every keyblade in the game to some degree, they all feel unique and great to use and I’m unbelievably happy that they implemented an upgrade system to keep all of them relevant. Magic is really fun to use and I love it. The attractions are fun and mostly feel good to use but I found myself intentionally staying away from a lot of them at some point just because of how it stopped the flow of combat for me. Enemies are mostly designed well and I enjoyed almost all of the bosses (more on this later). The story was much better and hit me much harder than I thought it would. The Disney stories were almost all really well done and were by far the best in the series. Just seeing all of the disjointed game story lines being brought together and making some degree of sense was insane. I never thought that KH would be a game that made me cry but it did, go figure.

Cons:
Minor complains- Every required part of The Caribbean (All the non-required stuff was pretty fun though)
- The world at times are just too empty simply due to how much space there is to fill
- Too many big non-humanoid bosses
- Using autorun/shootlocks to get anywhere (especially in boss fights) sucks
- Not having any tournaments really upsets me
- Only having 1 secret boss really upsets me
- Not seeing any FF characters from prior games really upsets me

Beyond that I two major complaints I want to write about more in depth, one from a gameplay perspective and one from a story perspective:

Gameplay: I really really hate how it feels like the combat is designed around the idea of you getting hit and getting hit a lot. There were many fights (especially towards the end) where I felt like it was basically impossible to actively avoid damage. This even transferred into some of the minigames/scripted scenes (where you can’t heal mind you) and led to some really frustrating deaths. Obviously part of this is this game being new and me not knowing any of the fights but it really appears like the devs expected you to get hit instead of designing ways for you to avoid damage (be it a defensive spell like reflect or what have you) and I think the very existence of an item to bring you back to life only proves that the devs knew this. No other KH game was designed in this way and I can’t help but think it comes down to an emphasis on spectacle over functionality.

Story: What is the midpoint of this game? There really isn’t one. The Disney worlds feel like filler because there is no midpoint to bring them back into context of the story and propel the plot forward. No HB/Traverse Town like moment from KH1. No HB/Twilight Town moment from KH2. I found myself waiting for that moment everything would be pushed forward and we’d be given new inspiration (or even desperation) to want to explore these Disney worlds and it just didn’t happen and that was really disappointing. It doesn’t even make sense why we couldn’t visit RG considering that’s something Sora would probably do in his depressive state but that’s just me being made we didn’t get to see RG in the new engine. I loved the Disney worlds and most of them tied into the overarching plot well, but his game needed to do less of a plot dump at the end and give us that break from constant Disney adventures.

Conclusion:
I know the negatives are longer than the positives here but the things I loved in this game I really really loved. Right now all I really want to do is continuing playing this game in spite of me finishing it and in spite of it's flaws, and that is as big of a complement I can give. On top of that I really can’t help but smile that this game finally exists, and that it’s actually good.

So in conclusion: 6/10 too much water.