Kingdom Hearts 3 Olympus/Twilight Town Impressions:
Personally, I was disappointed with my experience in exploring and delving into these worlds, especially Olympus. I was interested to see how the climax of Hercules would come to be, since Kingdom Hearts had not explored that part of the Hercules universe until now. The execution of the story is so mediocre though. The world had a decent, charming beginning with the opening cutscene and Hades’ encounter, but then I am flung into a intense situation and from that point, all that basically happens is Sora going from Point A to Point B to defeat the titans, who are far less difficult than the difficulty of titans in KH1.
Hercules hardly participates in the story and in gameplay throughout my journey. Hercules would feel at least a bit substantial had Sora allowed Hercules to answer his question, but that did not happen. He did not have an interesting story beyond the simple goal rescuing Zeus/Meg to restore Olympus. As possibly the last farewell to the Hercules franchise for KH3, Hercules did not do much or grow much with Sora with his friends beyond just a source of encouragement, and that is disappointing.
Phil and Zeus hardly did anything. Hell, Phil did not even get to say anything, and I wanted to see SOME words from him about how Sora grew into even better heroes. Zeus just thanks Sora for saving him after the big battle, and that is all that is done with the character. No actual bonding growing moment between Herc and Zeus, just a comedic farewell to Hades. Hades has worse treatment in the story honestly. He had a solid start in the story, but then he just leaves once Zeus is in presence. No epic final battle, it is just an anti-climatic departure. Everything about the way the climax of the Hercules’ story was just mediocre.
Gameplay wise, I did not like how attractions were just suddenly introduced in this world. I would have really appreciated some form of backstory behind the powers, but nope. If I had to be honest about attractions, so far, this new gameplay mechanic made battles way too easy to the point of making combat boring. Personally, I would have liked to have earned the attractions through hidden location discovery through gameplay at least, and made activation of them require more steps instead of just mashing attacks on Heartless to get the power in a short breeze. I kind of get why this was done from a game design standpoint to introduce new mechanics for players to keep on playing, but it makes for uneven, unsatisfactory gameplay progression. Also, not having a coliseum mode in this world like the last two games was another disappointment (Though, there is the chance I might find that kind of mode in another world possibly later, maybe the Big Hero 6 World with the underground tournaments in the film?)
So far, I am sort of disappointed with KH3 overall. Right now, I am currently in the Toy Box world at the start of the Galaxy Toys store. So far, the story and world is more interesting and entertaining than Olympus, so the game might pick up strong engagement for me soon. As far as my thoughts on Twilight Town go, I have a few disappointments (Like the world being so small to explore), but I enjoy the liveliness of citizens, the number of events going on in the district, and the number of activities you can do. I like the new gameplay features like the ratatouille cook minigame and the Gummiphone Lucky Emblem side-quest. The former is a bit disappointing with the short length of cooking though. The Lucky Emblem quest I love, mainly because it carries a feature from DQ8 I love and executes the idea much better. Those are my scrambled thoughts for now.
