Two criticisms on the gameplay of KH3 vs previous games

[AnotherXehanort13 22]

One thing that i didnt like about KH3 was how it departed from the originals a bit in feel and gameplay and not in a good way. Things like the zoomed out camera and amount of time you spend floating in the air (makes you feel like you're in a racing car and less grounded/in control) or the really obvious invisible walls in some zones, also the fact that Nomura didn't draw the health bar portraits for the characters which is something I always loved (I realise he probably didn't have the time to draw them for everyone), and attraction flows (which have been patch fixed in Critical)

But two core things that really rustled me jimmies are the way Sora turns around and the way you are locked into combos

1: turning

In previous KH games turning around on the spot was very very smooth and instant, whilst in KH3 theres this really janky "ministun" where Sora steps in a triangular fashion. Its kind of like a well greased wheel spinning vs this clacking set of 3 plastic doors in how it feels. You can try it by booting up KH3 and any other KH game and rotating the Left stick on your controller around in a circle quickly in both of them. I don't know if this was because they didn't like next gen graphics doing perfect 360s (You can do it in Sekiro) or - more likely IMO - it was because of problems Square had with Unreal Engine, but it makes fluid movement in a game with gliding, airsteps and flow motion feel very clunky sometimes. Just a little annoying thing that hopefully they remove in later next gen KH games

2: locked into combos

A really annoying thing about KH3's combat that made it feel unpolished compared to KH2 is that combos are not time sensitive. AKA if you're in the middle of a combo, pause for a split second and continue attacking, you will still be combo locked in the exact same direction. This is really really really annoying as it restricts your ability for creative combat and there are very good combo finishers - especially for people who picked magic - that are made less useful. Eg, what you should be able to do: Combo 1 combo 2 combo 3 (heartless dead) (pause for a split second and turn to heartless swarm behind you) combo 4 combo 5 magic finisher nuke. What you actually do in KH3: Combo 1 combo 2 combo 3 (heartless dead) (pause for a split second and turn to heartless swarm behind you) combo restarts from combo 1 combo 2. This means eg that if you have the magic AOE finisher it is now far less useful because most heartless die before your combo gets to it, and you cannot retarget it towards the group of heartless behind you. It feels really blech like it was made for DS or something, it doesn't have the same feeling of mechanical freedom and strategic possibilities in combat that KH2 had.

The ironic thing about this can already be remedied IN the game! Albeit by something that I don't think was 100% intentional. As KH3 contains keyblade switching, if you swap key blades mid combo, you can actually change direction and continue the combo! But it feels really janky to have to press the D-Pad every time you want to swap targets mid combo, which makes me feel like this wasn't meant to be an intentional tactic. I hope that in future KH games that being able to pause for a split-second and change the direction of your combo comes back and isn't restricted to keyblade swapping, it just makes the whole game feel better mechanically!

Edited May 4, 2019 by AnotherXehanort13

[AnotherXehanort13 22]

Also when I say "pause" i didnt mean literally pause the game, i meant pause as in wait a second

[Aerohill9-5 1]

I agree. I had been playing KH2 solidly in anticipation of 3 and when I first started 3 I could immediately tell the combat was less smooth. I couldn’t pin point what was different until I read your post and that’s definitely it. This probably doesn’t make sense but in KH3 Sora feels heavier than he did in 2,  it seemed to be easier to bounce between targets in 2. Another thing I didn’t like is you can’t hover in place when you use glide which takes away another combat advantage. Still a very good game however.