Kingdom Hearts III, released in 2019, caps off Sora’s sprawling “Dark Seeker Saga” with a mix of jaw-dropping highs and hilarious fumbles. This action RPG blends Disney’s corporate branding with Final Fantasy flair. It doesn’t always land perfectly but reaches chaotic fun, especially when chaining combos with Donald and Goofy or unleashing those over-the-top Attraction Flow moves that feel like summoning a Disneyland parade. The variety keeps battles engaging, even if the difficulty doesn’t always push players to master it fully. The Disney worlds are the heart of the game, and they deliver that nostalgic gut punch. How does a version running off the cloud on a Nintendo Switch feel?
Kingdom Hearts has always been a convoluted fever dream, but this entry takes it to new heights of “What the hell is going on?” The story tries to wrap up an epic spanning over a dozen titles, and it buckles under the weight. Even a lore nerd who played every spin-off will struggle keeping up with the alphabet soup of Organizations, Nobodies, and Heartless. For a game aimed at kids, featuring the likes of Donald Duck, Goofy, Elsa, and tons of recent Disney properties, the story is harder to follow than Eraserhead.
After a while, the endless cutscenes of characters spouting cryptic jargon about hearts and darkness become white noise. The pacing is abysmal, with about 90% of the plot happening in the last few hours, making most of the main Disney worlds into filler. The worlds, while gorgeous, feel disconnected from the main story. Sora and the gang are hopping from movie to movie, but there’s little sense of urgency or cohesion. Organization XIII shows up to monologue and bail from the scene as if they’re punching in to work. The final act attempts to tie everything together, but it’s rushed and leans heavily on fan service over clarity. Newcomers will be lost, and veterans might feel cheated by unresolved threads.
The difficulty is a mixed bag; Normal mode is a cakewalk, but Proud mode spikes absurdly hard in spots. The Attraction Flow attacks, while flashy, are overpowered and trivialise most fights. At its uh…heart, Kingdom Hearts III is a real-time action RPG. The system builds on the series’ blend of hack-and-slash melee, magic, and team-based abilities, with a focus on fluid movement and spectacle. Sora’s primary weapon, the Keyblade, drives the combat. Basic attacks are executed with a single button, chaining into combos that vary based on the currently equipped weapon of choice and movement (e.g., ground versus aerial combos). Combos are smooth and responsive, with distinct animations for each Keyblade, giving a sense of weight and variety. Aerial combat is particularly strong, with Sora’s acrobatic flips and glides making fights feel dynamic.
A standout feature, each Keyblade has unique transformation modes triggered by landing consecutive hits. For example, the Toy Story Keyblade turns into a hammer or drill, while the Pirates Keyblade becomes a spear or flagpole. These transformations add visual flair and tactical variety, with each form offering distinct move sets. Some transformations also unlock finishers, like massive energy blasts, which feel satisfyingly over the top. Spells can be cast quickly via a command menu or shortcuts, with each having multiple tiers that unlock through progression. Magic is visually spectacular, filling the screen with thunderstorms or whirlwinds, and dealing significant damage. It’s balanced by a mana pool that regenerates slowly.
A new addition, there are Disney theme park-inspired summons triggered randomly after landing hits. They’re flashy, deal massive damage, and clear crowds effortlessly, but their randomness and overwhelming power can trivialise encounters. Combat is fast and responsive, with seamless transitions between melee, magic, and special moves. The visual feedback—explosions, particle effects, and Keyblade flourishes—makes the fight feel like a Michael Bay film. Kingdom Hearts III excels at making players feel powerful, especially in large-scale battles against hordes of Heartless. Most of the time, the action is outrageously chaotic, where it’s uncertain what’s happening, but then it dies down, and it turns out all the foes have died due to the Teacups ride getting out of hand.
This flexibility keeps combat fresh across the 30–40-hour story. Combat leans too easily on Standard difficulty, with Attraction Flow and Links often obliterating enemies before strategy is needed. Even on Proud mode, difficulty spikes are inconsistent. Some bosses challenge reflexes, while others fall to button mashing. Critical Mode, added post-launch, helps, but isn’t available from the start. The sheer volume of special moves (Attractions, Links, Grand Magic) can overwhelm the core mechanics. Attraction Flow, in particular, feels like a win button, popping up too frequently and overshadowing other systems. This reduces the need for precise timing or resource management in most fights. Party members are competent but lacklustre in strategy.
Donald and Goofy often spam basic attacks or heal at odd times, and there’s no way to customise their behavior beyond basic ability toggles. World-specific allies feel more like set dressing than tactical assets. The screen can get chaotic with particle effects, enemy swarms, and command prompts piling up. It’s easy to lose track of Sora in the visual noise, especially during boss fights with multiple mechanics. The combat in Kingdom Hearts III is a dazzling, chaotic warzone that prioritises fun and spectacle over precision. It’s at its best when chaining Keyblade combos into magic barrages or Flowmotion dives, creating a sense of being an unstoppable Disney hero. However, the lack of consistent challenge and overpowered mechanics like Attraction Flow can make fights feel less strategic than they could be. Compared to series peaks like Kingdom Hearts II, it’s less refined but still a thrilling ride for fans of action-packed RPGs.
The base Kingdom Hearts III on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One targets 60fps, but the Nintendo Switch cloud version runs at 720p with an unstable framerate, often dropping below 30fps, even in docked mode with an Ethernet connection. This choppiness affects combat’s visual feedback, making Sora’s movements feel sluggish and disjointed. Flowmotion’s high-speed dashes or aerial combos lose their intended dynamism when frames stutter, disrupting the sense of empowerment central to the game’s design. Moving around also feels off and comes with a bit of a buffer sometimes.
Booting up the game is a surreal experience because it opens up like an MMORPG, featuring time schedules for maintenance and information about the user count and game speeds. It’s an off-putting experience and a further reminder that users aren’t actually playing the game but rather controlling it remotely from some server somewhere. The input lag is noticeable and rarely feels as responsive as playing it locally.
Cutscenes, which often transition into battles, exacerbate this issue with jolting transitions and desynced audio, breaking immersion during critical moments. The cloud version streams at 720p, but the intricate art style and vibrant colours suffer from heavy video compression, leading to macro blocking and visual artifacts, especially during fast-moving combat sequences. This degrades the clarity of enemy animations and environmental cues, making it harder to read telegraphed attacks or navigate crowded battles with large Heartless mobs. The compression is particularly noticeable in visually dense worlds like Toy Story or Pirates of the Caribbean, where particle effects and lighting lose their intended impact, undermining the spectacle of moves like Attraction Flow or Grand Magic.
The cloud version’s issues are particularly stark when compared to native Switch ports of demanding games like The Witcher 3 or Doom Eternal, which made compromises but run locally without requiring constant internet. Kingdom Hearts III’s poor optimisation, even on PS4 (long load times, frame stuttering), likely contributed to Square Enix’s decision to opt for cloud streaming, as porting it natively would have required significant resources.
