KINGDOM HEARTS III
Written by Danielle Carpenter
RE:MIND
26
I may be suffering from Kingdom Hearts Stockholm syndrome...
I should state on the record that I am a massive Kingdom Hearts fan and will always be at bat for the series. This is something important you should know before I get into this brief review / analysis of the Kingdom Hearts 3 DLC, Re:MIND, because this will be a short piece and it deserves something much more introspective which will come later down the line when I tackle the game in the magazine. Basically, I’m not too optimistic about the whole thing and I want to talk about why. Kingdom Hearts 3 Re:MIND released in January 2020, one year after the original game’s release. It is described as “the other tale that unfolded during the climax of Kingdom Hearts 3” and promises new story moments, playable alternate party members, and more exploration in certain areas. It is sold for $30, unless you want the Kingdom Hearts Orchestra -World of Tres- concert video which adds another $10 to your purchase. For purposes of transparency, I purchased the Concert DLC and have played through the entire campaign as well as Limit Cut and the Secret Episode. I did not dabble with the EZ/Pro Codes and only played with Data Greeting minimally. Let’s first talk about the Re:MIND campaign. This promised to provide answers to the lingering questions from the ending of Kingdom Hearts 3. In some regards, it delivered. But what the story mostly accomplishes is reminding me that when it comes to Kingdom Hearts, I have a bit of Stockholm syndrome. I imagine we all do. We keep coming back and are always led to believe the story will finally be satisfying. But it never reaches the mark. Re:MIND does very little to properly tell a full and complete story. Most of the time it retreads the end game with overlong cut scenes and sad excuses for, “See! That is why this character did this thing!” The first time I played through, I ended up skipping a lot of cut scenes because it seemed like I was watching the end of the game all over again. I understand the need to do some retelling for context, but having a majority of your cut scenes do the same thing as before is not good or interesting. If there is one good story element I can take away from Re:MIND, it is that it manages to make Sora’s tragic ending much more satisfying. Sora’s time jumping and expedition to save Kairi are considered taboo, and so it makes sense that Sora pushing those boundaries would force him to disappear at the end of the game. The origi-
APRIL 2020 | LEVEL STORY
nal game has very little explanation for Sora’s disappearance, and this makes me frustrated that Re:MIND wasn’t just part of the main game. The obvious reason for this is time constraints and games are difficult to make. However, Re:MIND really shouldn’t be a separate campaign. To avoid the monotony of the retreading scenes, it should just have been implemented into the main game, as Kingdom Hearts has done in the past with Final Mixes. Adding to this, the game only has nine save slots. Re:MIND requires a slot and so does the following episode, Limit Cut. That is three slots total for a complete Kingdom Hearts 3 experience, a third of a player’s save slots. It would have been nice if the game provided more with the DLC. This could have been fixed had it been patched into the main game. Gameplay in Re:MIND was overall very enjoyable. The new reaction commands were a ton of fun and I loved the group fight toward the end! I enjoyed playing as different characters but don’t enjoy the fact that they come with limitations to the base game such as no airstepping, no shotlocks (sometimes), etc. Sora is the character that I have built up throughout the game and it can be frustrating to lose the freedom I had with him. It would have been nice to see these elements implemented when playing as alternate characters. It also would be nice to have a small menu before playing as them to customize their shortcuts based on the items and spells they have available. Being able to play as Aqua and Riku again was great, but having the option to play as Roxas and Kairi was even better. That being said, I fear that making Kairi a playable character in one instance is meant to erase all of the damage her character has taken throughout the series lifetime. One good moment does not erase the bad. In addition, I found her frustrating and could not beat Xehanort with her on Critical Mode. I switched to Sora. Finally being able to explore Scala ad Caelum was also a real treat, though it is still somewhat limited. I’m still confused as to why this was not in the base game seeing as it is such an integral part of Xehanort’s character that is the set up at the start of the game and the framing device for the game. This comes back to my notion that Re:MIND should just be part of the regular Kingdom Hearts 3 campaign.
