May your Heart be your guiding key.

On release I played this game and felt there was something missing, KH2 was my all time favourite game and going into kh3, it felt bittersweet. I really didn't enjoy it, combat felt floaty and the attractions really took me out of the game quite a bit. Also not having critical mode felt awful since I love inflicting pain on myself early in the game. However a friend gifted me it as a long running joke that we had about finally playing the DLC, and I'm so happy he did. The game felt much more snappy and responsive, combat felt much better and of course critical mode made me enjoy it that little bit better. Not to mention how the DLC actually redeemed the story a bit for me.

Great purchase

Now I gotta do all the busy work to unlock everything... Great...

As a time conscious adult I cannot recommend this game. I figured after enjoying kingdom hearts 2 a long time ago that I should finish the trilogy. That was a mistake.

This game is bloated in every way that a game can be bloated.

A story that is nonsense because it is referencing 6+ games and events that may or may not have taken place. Overly long cutscenes that explain was just happened. Literally every single person in a scene having to give their redundant opinion when all we did was walk 10 feet forward from the last cutscene. It gets really tiring.

The dialog itself is fine for the series, but the characters repeating the same story beats in multiple worlds feels insincere. Follow your heart might be main theme, but why does it literally apply to everyone we meet.

The gameplay has too many systems. In combat, you can strike, use magic, use combo finishers, use wave motion to run up walls or swing on poles and all that links into more powerful attacks, use focus to shoot, use focus to airdash to highlighted points, use links(all of which are unique summons that have their own gimmicks that change what you are doing in combat), attack a certain enemy to use the theme park attacks, use items, switch keyblades, parry and use reprisal attacks, use any one of the many combo actions that unlock because you did enough other combat actions. It's alot, and that's not even going into level specific gimmicks.

The gummi ship is it's own section now, with optional missions, puzzles, combat encounters, constellations to take photos of, and not to mention building the gummi ship or the mini gummi ships.

On top of all of that you can find Game&Watch style minigames to play from the menu at any time in case there wasn't enough game in this game.

They should've cut half these systems, and given us more Disney worlds to experience. I am upset that a series I remember fondly from my childhood is such a hot mess nowadays.