Kingdom Hearts 3 ReMind: Forget You
It’s hard to believe since DLC has been part of the landscape for so many years now, but Kingdom Hearts III is the first game in the long-running series to even really have to capability to take advantage of this feature we all take for granted now. So when the DLC ReMind was announced, fans went wild with the possibilities. New world (s)? New story content? Finally getting to play as Kairi, who definitely got the short shrift in the main game? Seeing what the Final Fantasy characters are up to since they didn’t even appear in Kingdom Hearts 3?
The answers to all these questions in Kingdom Hearts 3: ReMind are yes but in a fashion so disappointing it would have been better if they didn’t at all. This won’t be what I would call a proper review of ReMind but I did play through the story elements, and at least tried the incredibly hard bosses to get the “secret ending” (which I ended up watching on YouTube because I’ve never gotten good enough at these games to get any of the secret endings honestly), so I’ll give my thoughts on those. Spoiler warning ahead, though even if like me you’ve followed and beaten a significant amount of the games this could still be pretty confusing…
Ok, so the ending of Kingdom Hearts 3: Sora and co defeat Organization XIII and Xehanort and all his past versions so he’s dead and gone right? Well, maybe, that’s a story for another day. During that battle though, Kairi was “crystalized” and it’s kind of a mystery where she ended up. You think that’d be the thrust of the next proper Kingdom Hearts game, the search for Kairi (AGAIN) but, no that is addressed in this DLC, which that I will at least give them credit for. Without getting too much into the details, Sora is able to travel to the past to search for Kairi’s heart and rescue it before she is crystallized. The past being the huge ending battle between Organization XIII, Xehanort and all the Guardians of Light that was literally just fought at the end of Kingdom Hearts 3. That’s right, you get to go through that all over again, literally. But we’ll get to that in just a second.
Before you get to that battle, you are just thrown into what can best be described as a mini-boss rush. Three bosses, no breaks or chances to replenish items in-between, no chance to save between bosses either. This is after like 30+ minutes of opening cut scenes. Also if like me, you beat Kingdom Hearts 3 about 12 months ago and have not touched it since, you might be a little unprepared to fight three bosses in a row. I made it through, but that seems like an incredibly hard bar to past just to get back to the end of the original game.
And yes, I am not joking, at least a third of this DLC is you just fighting bosses you’ve already fought at the end of Kingdom Hearts 3 (not every battle but most of them). They vary it up a little bit by in some fights you can choose someone besides Sora to fight as, but often that’s not the best choice as they lack the skills, HP and items you would have as Sora and you only get to fight for them for that one battle. Want to play as Aqua? Enjoy it for the few minutes it lasts. It doesn’t make sense on multiple levels. 1. You just did these, why are we being forced to go through them again. 2. You as Sora are specifically told you can only witness the past, not change it so why are we even fighting these battles? That’s not what you are here for and you could’ve come up with more unique fights that weren’t just the same thing or just skip them entirely.
Eventually, you do get through all that and get to some actual fresh content, which has you looking for fragments of Kairi’s heart in the abandoned city where the final battle against Xehanort took place. You can fully explore this city, and you get to fight some regular enemies, which is more fun than fighting the bosses again. Eventually, you get the heart fragments, bring Kairi back, and you two together take on a different form of Xehanort. And that’s it. You can play as Kairi in this final battle, but that’s basically putting it on super hard mode because she’s incredibly weak, and much like any of the other fights where you can pick other characters, you only get to play as her for a few minutes anyway. That’s it. Pretty sure anybody who wanted Kairi to not only play a more significant role but play as her would feel incredibly cheated at this point.
Notice how at this point I haven’t even mentioned the much-missed Final Fantasy characters that were at least pretty key parts of both Kingdom Hearts I & II? That’s because they aren’t even in this part of the story content. To even see what can only be considered their slightly extended cameo, you have to beat the story content of the ReMind DLC. That unlocks the “limit cut” episode, which is just a flimsy set up for fighting the members of Organization XIII yet again, just as much more difficult versions of themselves. They have a couple of brief scenes of dialogue to set up the scenario, and that’s it. This certainly should have implications for at least the next proper entry in the series, but again as something teased as a significant part of this DLC, it’s incredibly disappointing.
And so that’s what you are paying money for with Kingdom Hearts 3 ReMind. Some very disappointing returns, a lot of recycled content, and cut scenes you are probably better off checking out on YouTube than working hard to achieve. Unless you are completely desperate for more Kingdom Hearts content, I’d skip out on this DLC.
One quick note about my next post, I seriously want to pace myself and generally do not want to post more than once or twice a week to avoid burn out/hitting a dearth of content anytime soon, just a lot of things coincided this weekend for several posts in short order, so I ended doing three in three days. The next post won’t be until this weekend for certain if for no other reason than to pace myself a little better. See ya real soon!
