I try to stick to a FAQ format for most any Kingdom Hearts post
But some come out a little different than most
Many say the next Kingdom Hearts is but a song
And, for anyone curious, they’re not particularly wrong
Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory is a rhythm game
It’s Theatrhythm: Kingdom Hearts in all but name
And if you’re looking for a fun time, it’s a can’t-miss
It’s great gameplay with a soundtrack that is bliss
Though that depends on how much you love the franchise
And whether you dream of sailing Chip n’ Dale’s skies
Or if you hum the Traverse Town theme to sleep
Or count Meow Wows instead of sheep
And you can play as Sora, Riku, Aqua, and Roxas
And use all their friends to smash heartless and boxes
This is pure, unfettered Kingdom Hearts nostalgia
Looking for something else will cause psychalgia
But, as is ever common here
Nomura wants your ear
Yes, this game is nostalgia with a plan
(Even if we’re not going to include Tarzan)
See, at the end of KH3, Sora went missing
So it’s up to the girl that he should be kissing
To sort through her boyfriend’s thoughts
And find a memory that connects the dots
To find where her poor Sora has gone
And to make the time before KH4 drag on
And to Kairi’s credit, she does find that important key
It just happens to be something Sora would never see
The answer was always in Kairi’s memories
And how “Ansem” planted one most cleverly
Back when our heroine’s planet heard its final knell
And the villain rocketed Kairi away like Kara Zor-El
Seems Xehanort was aware of other universes beyond their own
Worlds where a Gummi Ship has never flown
Places that appear in their own universe as mere fiction
But are real on the other side of this barrier’s restriction
So if Sora can’t be found
That is where he must be around
And, by the end, our heroes have a new world to see
(And if you want to know how, be sure to buy KH3’s DLC)
Riku ventures forth to a whole new place
And Kairi stays home to, I don’t know, wash her face
And maybe the next adventure will truly let her participate
As opposed to just sticking her on the cover like fan bait
But if you’re looking for more plot, that’s all you’ll find
Because this whole game takes place in Sora’s mind
But there is an unexpected bonus to this whole affair
And that’s the way the recap focuses on the joy and despair
Unlike a certain handsome blogger’s focus on franchise phantoms
This story wastes no time on the differences between Ansems
The whole tale of Kingdom Hearts is told from I to III to 358/2 days
And it features not the bad guys, and all of their wily ways
But the trials, tribulations, and feelings of our idols
Because Kingdom Hearts was never about lore bibles
It was always about a trio of separated teens
And how they reconciled through any means
And they made friends and enemies along the way
But didn’t let any silly Organization ruin their day
Kingdom Hearts always had Disney and Square
And bad guys in cloaks with dubious hair
But it was never about Mickey, Ansem or all the rest
It was about a boy, a girl, and a boy that thought he knew best
And Melody of Memory takes the time to remind us all
That this franchise is more than a lore wrecking ball
It’s about the people that have caused us to care
And the pain that we all share
So, maybe this interpretation of a silly rhythm game is wrong
But I still think, at the very least, it is a game worthy of a song
And I might still be working out the key to its chorus
But that’s only because we’re trying to find our Soras
So Kingdom Hearts 3: Re⏀Mind is DLC that is now available. What’s KH’s first DLC like?
Hell no. Unfortunately, this was the bad ol’ days of “
Boo indeed! And this continued to be the new normal for the franchise. Birth by Sleep (the PSP one) Final Mix featured upgrades like a battle against Pinochio’s Monstro, Coded got Re:Coded, and, in the end, it seems that poor Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days was the only Kingdom Hearts title to not see any gameplay changes after its initial release. … And that is the case only because it was repurposed as exclusively cinema scenes for the inevitable HD release. I shudder to think how many secret boss battles could have been squeezed in there if someone decided to properly convert the DS game.
Your mileage may vary, but, as these things go, this seems to be pretty beefy DLC. First of all, there’s the signature “Final Mix” difficulty mode, this time allowing for some interesting challenges or lack of challenges. You can make the game more difficult by adding conditions like a HP drain, or make the game easier with one-hit kills for your opponents. It’s like a built-in Game Genie! There’s also a boss rush of some significant opponents, and the requisite secret boss du jour. And there’s an expansion to the “photo mode” of the original game, with the ability to set up dioramas so you can see what it would look like if Riku and Sora kissed in new and interesting worlds. We’ve also got additional keyblades, Oathkeeper and Oblivion, that were conspicuously absent during the initial release, and some additional battle options that manage to change the entire feeling of Sora’s combat. … Actually, I think those items are free as part of the DLC’s update, but it’s really hard to keep track of what is what. I know for certain that the new plot elements are part of the DLC, though!
So it’s time to talk about Disney, Kingdom Hearts 3, Google, and whether or not I am afraid for my very existence.
For Kingdom Hearts 1, we have…
Kingdom Hearts 3 is a little different…
Applying the same calculations to Kingdom Hearts 3, we see an average age of 14 years for every franchise involved. Dropping the classic worlds (anything over fifteen years old… and man, it hurts me to refer to Disney’s Hercules as “classic”), we see an average age of (rounding up from 6.66) 7 years. That is very close to Kingdom Hearts 1’s average of 8. And the preceding average makes more sense with its oldest game being only 24 years old (Toy Story a bit more contemporary than Pinocchio), and our most recent movie is 5 years old.
Kingdom Hearts 1 spoke to my childhood. Kingdom Hearts hit a college-age Goggle Bob, and said, “Hey, remember when you were six and had a crush on Ariel? Remember when you wanted to be Aladdin? Remember when Tim Burton inspired your decade long mall-goth phase? Remember going on one of your first dates to Tarzan? And how you probably would have gone on more dates at that point in your life, but you still were stuck in that mall-goth phase? ‘Member?” Kingdom Hearts was an amazing game on its own, but its Disney Cast was summoned almost precisely to satisfy my own childhood nostalgia. And, given I was just the right age where I would start fondly remembering childish things (as opposed to being the cranky teen that totally wasn’t into that cartoon crap, mom), Kingdom Hearts hit the serotonin sectors of my brain faster and harder than any kid with a keyblade and a turbo x-button ever could.
And now it’s gone. Kingdom Hearts 3 only features characters that were either created by Disney, or were created within the confines of the Kingdom Hearts universe, so they’re just legally created by Disney. Mind you, that’s a whole separate thing from how Disney never “created” Pinocchio or Aladdin or Rapunzel; it just created a version of that timeless character, copyrighted it, and decided to sue anyone that tried to use that character ever again. I’m sorry, what is the hair color of your chosen mermaid? Red? Yes, we’re going to have to issue a cease and desist.
And Kingdom Hearts 3 reminds us all why this is a bad thing. If Disney doesn’t want something, then damn tradition, the audience, or even the creators having a say in the matter. Do you think anyone at Square-Enix wanted to drop its de facto mascots Cloud or Sephiroth from the proceedings? Do you think they didn’t want to promote the star of their latest Final Fantasy title? Could we live in a world where even the slightest hint of 
And, while I am certainly upset that Strata will do nothing for my videogame hording habits, my biggest issue with the service (that only exists in a theoretical state as of this moment) is that it will be completely beholden to the whims of Google. Like the Apple app store before them, Google will inevitably have complete control over who is able to publish games to its storefront. Google will also have absolute control over when those games may be removed. And if this sounds like some kind of Big Brother-based paranoia, and you would like to imagine a world where Google “does no evil” and is completely hands-off in its monopoly of its own service: consider that Google will have technical control over what games can stream, but, more importantly, it would have complete control over how this content is monetized and advertised (at least within the service). And, let’s not kid ourselves, no one is going to keep a game up on a streaming service if the service has literally made it impossible for said game to make money. 
God help me, I care about Squall “Leon” Leonhart, and I care about that all those arcade games we’re never going to see again because their technology is too annoying to emulate. And, yes, I preemptively care about all the Google Strata games that are going to be exclusive to the system, and then lost to time because Google will eventually decide Gmail ads would be more profitable. It may sound crazy, but, yeah, I care about crazy things. 
Favorite World: Big Hero 6 felt like it received the most fully-realized world. It felt like an appropriate “sequel” to the movie, all the memorable characters were included (really did not think Honey Lemon or Wasabi would make the cut), and its general geography allowed for a Crackdown-esque level of gameplay not seen elsewhere in the title. And, if Big Hero 6 is visited as the last world, it actually makes thematic sense that Sora is now experienced and training other heroes like Hercules did with Sora on his first world. Symmetry!
Did you know? I did not note Winnie the Pooh’s appearance in the timeline of Kingdom Hearts worlds because Winnie the Pooh is omnipresent, and all bask in his ever-burning glow. His desire for honey will outlive us all.
So, Kingdom Hearts 3 is the first Kingdom Hearts game since 2005, eh? How’s that working out?
Certainly not. In a lot of ways, Kingdom Hearts 3 is what the Kingdom Hearts titles have been striving for since the initial announcement of Squall Leonheart meets Dumbo. Disney worlds are huge and varied, NPCs actually exist (where appropriate) so Planet Tangled feels populated by actual people (as opposed to the Agrabah Marketplaces of the past that had apparently been struck neutron bombs), and the various worlds often contain mechanics that unmistakably separate the “levels” by something other than your Disney-approved guest characters. There are (relatively) Giant Robots in Toy Store world! A sailing system reminiscent of a mini-Wind Waker in Pirates of the Caribbean world! Big Hero 6 features a Crack Down-esque super-hero city playground! It’s pretty great, and a far cry from the