That premise is good. But the entire time I was playing through the worlds, I kept wondering, "How is what I'm doing tied to getting back the lost power of waking?? Why am I here?"
And the entire time they dont really capitalize on the mystery of the game- being that they're looking for someone.
Exactly, KH3 had its work cut out for it with both the rubric of past mainline titles and the wealth of dramatic precedent to draw off of from the games between 2 and 3. All this game needed to do was start connecting the dots and keep the plot moving towards the inevitable conclusion but instead it keeps stalling, and stalling, and stalling for time-- and what we do in the interim is not fun or interesting. Badly rehashed Disney movies and fetch quests sprinkled between extraneous dialogue delivered by villains who have no reason to be there. Every other KH game has clearly driven antagonists who want something specific and identifiable-- Marluxia, Larxene, Luxord, and Dark Riku have no reason to align themselves with MX that is ever explored, it's just taken for granted that they did even as they behave with total ambivalence towards the events of the game. Couple that with Sora's lack of explicit motive for exploring Disneyland, and a constant lack of follow through on that, and there's simply no clash or tension to speak of. I can't believe how vanilla and non threatening Larxene, one of my former favs and one of the most legitimately evil and cruel characters in KH, is in this game. If it wasn't for her VAs stellar performance, she'd be a forgettable third rate "harpy" like most femme anime villains.
We've been looking for people in almost every game and in those games that was really central. The person was mentioned, the person was asked about. I shouldnt have to go, 'Oh yeah, we're also trying to find Terra' when some one brings him up. Because he hasnt been brought up in several hours and multiple worlds.
It's even worse than that: not only do we forget and have to be reminded, Sora himself frequently forgets or dismisses what he's supposed to be doing, but then he'll randomly oscillate towards immense concern (depicted here as adolescent whining) over, say, Aqua's fate. He's an absent protagonist and stale audience surrogate when he isn't busy being a functioning black hole for plot threads that don't directly involve him or the mobile game. Sora shows up, does something to fix a problem, the game moves on. Nothing lingers like it's important at all, and the game relegates all of the dynamics upon which it was built and anticipated to a second tier of priorities right behind telling us Sora is cool and making sure absolutely nothing gets done for 25 hrs of playtime (or, if you're slow like me, 40+).
As opposed to say KH1 or KH2 where that persons absence is felt and the fact that we might find something about them in the next world always being a hope when we get there and travel through it.
Moreover, real progress in world building or constructing stakes is made. Prior to KH3, KH2 had the worst record on Disney integration, but even then the very first visit to Land of Departure involves Sora learning
something tenuous though it may be about Riku's whereabouts and well being. Sora actually interacts with the Emperor and there's payoff for traveling through that world and helping Mulan with her quest. Meanwhile in KH3 the very first thing Sora does in that world is to forget why he's there, then it ends with Hercules basically acting like he doesn't know or remember why Sora was there either, but it's all good because now he's found where he belongs???
Ienzo and co are working on finding a way to bring Roxas and Namine back, Lea and Kairi are training, Riku and Mickey are loking for Aqua.
While we were just sort of messing arround in Disney worlds.
If we had got to go to RG and meet with Ienzo and that was tied into the plot more for us to help him with getting Roxas back, if we went to train with Kairi and Lea, if we had been with Riku and the king to help them- in other words if we had spent more time with them and helped them in moving the plot forward- i feel this wouldve been stronger.
Yeah I'm just going to say it, the Gummi Phone sucks. It's just a lazy excuse to have characters interact without doing the hard work of constructing an actual scene with them and making that impactful. Literally anything else would have been better, do heart holograms like some Star Wars shit or something, but make it at least look as if the characters are sharing space and bouncing off each other. There is actually nothing more boring or disengaging than watching people talk about plot on the fucking phone, unless you are using the cutaway as an opportunity for genuine expressiveness and to convey the faultiness of faceless/impersonal interaction in giving people a read on each other (see: that interplay in Burn After Reading). In short, technological modes of communciation are bad for building rapport between characters and should be very limited and very purposeful.
More to the point though, yeah, KH3 fails at providing an incentivizing sense of momentum: Sora needed to know something was at stake and it never once felt like he did, or if he did it wasn't serious enough to make him care. Knowing that he had a specific goal to solve the dilemma with Roxas, something Ienzo needed him to seek out and which maybe the True Org. could point him towards, would foster an actual sense of interconnection within the narrative. Nope, KH3 can't have that. Eat your cereal.
