Kingdom Hearts 3 Chronicles - Part 8

Kingdom Hearts 3 Chronicles is my attempt to keep up with my thoughts on
Kingdom Hearts III after every session. Today’s post will cover the 8th
world. Also worth know that I am playing on Proud Mode, the hardest
difficulty available from the start.

Kingdom Hearts 3 Chronicles is my attempt to keep up with my thoughts on Kingdom Hearts III after every session. Today’s post will cover the 8th world. Also worth knowing that I am playing on Proud Mode, the hardest difficulty available from the start.

I’ve still been sick as I try to get through this game so apologies that this one is coming after such a big gap and will probably be shorter than the others. Anyway, we’re in San Fransokyo, the world based on Big Hero 6. Now Big Hero 6 may just be my favorite Disney movie of the last decade and it’s a shame it doesn’t get the recognition I think it deserves. Is it just the superhero aspect that makes people turn away? In general I feel like Disney’s non-musicals get short changed, while everyone’s off debating Frozen vs. Tangled vs. Moana. I mention all that because the story of the world serves as a sequel to the film, and it does some wonderful things with that concept, so I want you to understand that I’m coming at it from the perspective of someone who loves Big Hero 6 with all my heart.

From the very start of the level it seems the devs are trying to crank up the action to 11 - you’re immediately tossed into a set piece battle on the Golden Gate Bridge, and Baymax joins your party for the fight very quickly. Awesome, I love Baymax so I’m stoked to have him along. His team attack is a little clunky I think because the controls aren’t suited to attacking enemies on the ground, and most of these enemies are turrets, but it’s fine.

Afterwards we go to Hiro’s garage and formally meet the rest of the Big Hero 6 team. I’ve mentioned before that having the characters do unique stuff instead of repeating their movie helps to make them feel like real characters, and that does some major business here as it feels like you’re just hanging out with your superhero pals. Hiro gives Sora an AR headset that he uses to collect data on how to fight the Heartless. This is a cool set piece because it gives you a glimpse of just how big San Fransokyo is but in a way where you’re moved through moment to moment so you don’t need to be overwhelmed by the size of the place (but trust me, that comes later).

When you complete the AR Mission you see a news report of Heartless in the city so you go out to fight it, and THIS is where you might start feeling overwhelmed by the size of the world. Thankfully Hiro will highlight where the enemy is on your visor so you can always track it that way. You fight a series of Heartless battles before a boss fight, pretty standard stuff, but then the “Darkubes” show up - cubes that take the form of a flying… thing that can’t be damaged normally. These cubes look similar to the “bug” cubes from RE: Coded so at this point I started assuming that game’s datascape was involved, and maybe Data Riku would now be evil. Close, but not quite.

The Big Hero 6 team gets split up by this Darkube thing and Sora has to rescue them all. This is the point where the size of San Fransokyo gets really overwhelming, because in order to save Go Go you have to find a giant ball that you rolled around on top of during the AR mission section...but I had zero idea where the thing was. There was just too much city, and too much similarly designed city for me to find it. The whole section was me just running around in her proximity until I found it. Maybe if I had more of an opportunity to explore the world at my leisure I could’ve gotten a handle on where everything was, but until now every time you’re in this world it’s a mad rush to go fight some enemies so you don’t exactly get to sightsee. A minor gripe maybe but considering this section is timed (you have to save every Big Hero 6 member before their health runs out) it was stressful that the difficulty I had was due to simply not being able to navigate. The other heroes are easy enough to save and all require some unique use of a game mechanic, so overall it’s a fun section.

After you save everyone (or maybe before tbh, the cold medicine is making me remember things in a wonky order) you discover that Riku is the one controlling this Darkube monster. Except it’s a younger version of Riku than we’ve seen in this game so far. Is it Riku from the past, brought forward into time from when he was under Ansem’s control? Or is it Replica Riku, back for more evil, despite apparently repenting (and hints that he’s connected to Riku now)? The game doesn’t really give you an answer either way yet… it mentions time travel AND replicas so who even knows at this point. What’s important right now is that he ISN’T our buddy Riku, and also he has Baymax’s original code chip that he’s using to control the Darkubes.

The rest of the level is about fighting the Darkube, only for Riku to then summon the original Baymax and make him evil. So if you aren’t caught up on what happened in Big Hero 6, that film ends with Hiro and Baymax inside weird dimension between two warp gates. Baymax sacrifices himself in order to save Hiro, and Hiro creates a new Baymax at the end. So far in this level we’ve been teaming up with the 2nd Baymax. Riku then brings the original Baymax back from the weird dimension and corrupts him for the final boss fight. It’s an emotional sequence if you’re familiar with the stakes at play and what Baymax represents to Hiro. Basically Hiro being able to accept Baymax’s “death” at the end of the movie was the culmination of his character arc, so him coming back from the dead and also he’s evil is heartbreaking.

The battle against Dark Baymax is kinda gimmicky, but on the other hand it’s cool that you get to do an entire fight teamed up with Baymax. I think I would’ve preferred part of the fight to be this way and then another part being a more standard KH fight, but as I’ve mentioned before I like when this game goes for weird gameplay switches. The first part of the fight is a thrilling chase through the city while the second part is most just dodging and using the strike command when you can until he’s dead.

They manage to save Baymax and make him good again, so we end the level with TWO Baymaxs which is a delightful and heartfelt end to the story started in the film. I’m happy with the outcome. Overall I liked this level a lot. It had one of the stronger stories, some great gameplay mixes, a big world, and some challenging boss fights. The world may have been too big at times but they clearly took that into account with the AR visor so aside from my previous gripe it’s fine.

The level ends right afterward but you don’t get any cutscenes or taken out of the world like normal. After the ending scene you’re just loaded into Hiro’s garage and you can explore or leave the world. So I’ll end this entry right here because after this things start to get pretty crazy…