Arendelle Is The Worst World In Kingdom Hearts History

thegamer.com:

To say that Kingdom Hearts 3 is pretty polarising would be putting it lightly, with fans arguing about almost every single facet of the game. There’s not much middle ground to be found between the die-hard fans and the naysayers, but there’s at least one thing we all agree on - Arendelle freaking sucks.

I realise this immediately weakens the whole ‘Kingdom Hearts 3 is great, actually’ deal I’ve been trying to build up when talking about the game recently, but there’s no sugar-coating it - this is simply one of the worst worlds in Kingdom Hearts history. In fact, it’s actually a good case study for what makes a good Kingdom Hearts world, and what doesn’t, so let’s look on the positive side of things and see it as a teaching moment.

Related: Kingdom Hearts 4 Needs To Give Its Disney Worlds More Purpose

Let’s start off with the big one - the story. All Arendelle does is lazily insert Sora, Donald, and Goofy into a rushed, half-assed version of Frozen’s plot. That’s been done in previous Kingdom Hearts games, sure, but at least in worlds like Aladdin it does the movie and its main beats justice and makes the Kingdom Hearts characters feel like they have a relationship with the Disney protagonists they exist alongside.

I bought that Sora cared about Mushu and Mulan by the end of The Land of Dragons in Kingdom Hearts 2, while he had maybe one good conversation with Anna and barely even took part in Frozen’s ending scenes. It feels incredibly forced, including the rehashed Let It Go scene that is literally a direct translation of the film. The game is far more interested in having Sora interact with Larxene than it is in trying to teach our hero a lesson through the power of Disney. Sora is just along for the ride and it sucks.