Kingdom Hearts (PS2, 2002)
Graphics-8 Sound-7.5 Control-7 Challenge-7/3** Story-5.5
Level Design-7 Frustration-7/8* Fun-7 Originality-5.5
Overall Score-7
*Doing worlds out of order w/o grinding
**Rail shooter levels
+
Difficulty options (normal or expert - enemies deal 2x damage on expert but it's also easier to unlock the secret ending/final episode (don't need to complete Hades cup or save the 99 dalmatians)+shows a battle record (combat stats) at the end of the game; the remaster adds an easy mode and changes some aspects of each mode)
Nice visual effects (one huge boss model, spells), very good animation and pretty good art direction
Target lock-on and target switching (can lock onto enemies, NPCs and objects; move around freely during lock-on - you don't circle around the target like in Zelda: OoT)
Spell shortcut combos (l1+face button, only up to three spells though and there isn't one for items)
Homebase spaceship (gummi ship) that can be teleported to via most found save points. After the first three worlds you'll also be able to warp between visited worlds meaning you don't have to play the rail shooter mini-game to travel to them
Fight alongside NPC allies after the intro gameplay (3 person party, can switch out members at will; Secret of Mana etc.)
Encourages aggressive play by letting you regain MP by hitting enemies - later used in Bunny Must Die and Hollow Knight for example
Learn new movement and combat abilities as you go (dodge roll - after first boss, high jump - whale world, glide jump - neverland; guard/block, counter attack - block or parry (attack as the enemy is attacking) an attack and it replaces the attack command for a sec or two, )
Decent-good bosses overall (multiple destructible parts for some bosses - used in some earlier shooters (Out Zone, Gokujo Parodius: Kako no Eiko o Motomete, Assault Suits Leynos 2, Einhänder, Radiant Silvergun) and FF games, good: cerberus, second whale world boss, oogie boogie (first form), hercules, maleficient's first form, final boss' third form)
Random but (mostly) avoidable and seamless combat encounters
Can train against some NPCs in the first area (optional, weird how beating the greyhaired guy (Riku) is much harder but only rewards you with a potion though, no reward for beating the younger kids)
Some mini-games (on foot race - decent, flying carpet escape segment - meh and so-so controls, sliding down a giant tree when revisiting deep jungle - decent though there's a few issues (tarzan kinda gets in the way, camera focuses on sora instead of the ground when jumping (can destroy most obstacles with the sword however), can't finish all paths in one go - have to replay it 5 times), tigger bouncing game (catch tigger when he tries to jump on the carrots) - meh, tigger jumping simon says game & baseball game - not that good, barrel breaking - decent and you can knock barrels into others to break both)
Spaceship editor with decent depth (switch out parts on a grid system) and you can pick up various new models over the course of the game although only some can be redesigned
Various hidden and out of reach items incentivizes exploration
Some minor sequence breaking possibilities (attack repeatedly in mid-air to reach further when jumping - lets you reach some chests earlier)
Some spell interaction with the environment for optional rewards (potion creation in the jungle camp w/ ice and fire, shocking some of the flowers in wonderland, etc.)
Named rooms (Jet Set Willy)
Some shortcuts (there could've been more of them at times though)
Ability customization using an ability point system (similar to FF5 - you have a pool of AP and can pick between abilities to activate until you run out of points, some equipment increases the pool besides leveling up)
Scan (see enemy HP) is a passive ability here
Some decent puzzles (mushroom "enemies" doing pantomimes to clue you in on what spell to use one them, spatial reasoning, clock tower's small doors, bastion library and hovering chests)
Battle arena with optional boss fights (coliseum world after your first visit)
Some good enemy design (the fat guys, the shield soldiers)
New enemies sometimes appear when revisiting previous worlds with new abilities or trinity keys (generally they are enemies you've seen elsewhere before though)
Can deflect some enemy shots with the sword
Pretty good sense of vulnerability during the bastion world
Two hidden bosses (clock tower and agrabah after locking the bastion world)
Can stand on certain bosses - Mega Man Legends, later expanded upon in Shadow of the Colossus
+/-
Partially non-linear structure after the first two areas (can travel to three different worlds with the ship though they vary in difficulty (enemy strength is shown as "battle lvl" on the hub map screen) and world 3/deep jungle right away is quite tough (unless you grind and/or go back and stock up on a bunch of potions, same with world 2/coliseum), have to finish Deep Jungle before you can talk to Cid about navigation gummi blocks even if you got one from elsewhere before that; after returning to traverse town and beating a boss you can go to the battle arena or two new worlds (or the first chapter of 100 acre wood though there's not much to it) - these are hidden before getting to them so you can't see which one is easier, three new locations become available after finishing agrabah (monstro, halloween, atlantica (after beating halloween (or atlantica?) you can go to neverland as well); one new chapter of 100 acre wood as well), one new coliseum cup and one more book page (100 acre wood chapter) become available after finishing the whale/monstro world)
Some backtracking for optional items with new movement abilities and elemental spells and sometimes to progress (atlantica water current, glide jump is quite helpful in the bastion dungeon but might not be mandatory)
Mandatory rail shooter segments when moving to new planets (similar to Star Fox but not nearly as good, no lock-on+sensitive aiming and kinda hard to line up with targets, dropped items sometimes end up where you can't reach them since you can't scroll the screen, can't change the view angle - makes it a bit hard to tell if you're about to crash with smaller objects, can't accelerate nor tilt your ship - upgrades?, can't switch to FP view, difficulty barely progresses throughout the game and in the late game you can mostly skip it with the warp feature; one positive is the branching paths while moving between some locations)
Some choice over your starting stats however the effects could've been explained better (selecting the sword first increases your attack by two, the shield your defense by two, and the rod your MP by one. Selecting the sword second decreases your attack by one, the shield your defense by one, and the rod your AP (ability points) by one; see below)
Collectathon elements (10+ items during the intro gameplay on the island, 6 projector slides in the jungle camp to progress the story there, 51 dalmatians to complete 100 acre wood - not too bad, synthesizing one of each item to be able to synthesize the ultima weapon (requires a lot of ingredient items) - no thanks)
Hub map (interplanetary/dimensional travel, can only travel to a destination that connects to the world/area you're at - see Clash at Demonhead or Alundra 2)
There's also a short "personality" quiz after the stat priority choice and this actually affects how long it takes to level up at certain points of the game - should've been at least hinted at. Pick the second answer on each for an unchanged experience where leveling up isn't slower or faster at any point (the third answer makes the game harder as you'll be around lvl 50 when reaching the final area and that's when it takes positive effect by making leveling faster after having made it slower for the first 50 levels)
Pretty frequent save points which also restore HP and MP (multiple slots, shows location and current lvl+money+time taken)
Sometimes silly character costumes
Starts with two basic fetch quests
Enemy drops disappear after a few seconds
Parallel worlds/interdimensional travel theme (sora's world+ff world+various disney worlds with short stories based on their movies)
There's a basic journal feature to vaguely recap what you've been doing+it includes a character encyclopedia and a bestiary but no real quest log and no message log and you can't talk amongst the party to recap what you were doing/about to do if you've taken a break from the game (see PSIV; sometimes you might lost track of where to go if you take breaks from the game). While there's a basic trinity list in it, it doesn't show per location progress, only totals for each color.
Pretty frequent combat encounters in hostile areas
Plenty of fan service (plenty of FF and Disney characters make appearances and some are playable? (no pre-FF6 chars though and few non-Nomura designs used), the FF characters tend to behave and/or look kind of different though and some have different VAs)
Which abilities you gain earlier based on if you picked sword/shield/staff in the intro doesn't really make sense - for example you gain berserk (more damage at critically low HP) and slapshot (rapid fire strikes w/ some crit chance) earlier with shield as a focus
The game doesn't pause when browsing commands or your item inventory during combat
Some tutorial messages pause gameplay and they're not voiced
Can't rotate the camera while locking onto something (probably because of its uses outside of combat but it can occasionally be annoying)
Funny how Goofy is often smarter than Donald and Sora
Some worlds are very small (coliseum, ) and the worlds are kinda small in general
The shrinking and growing mechanic in Wonderland is a bit underdeveloped but the surreal elements of the area are pretty cool
Can't cancel an attack animation with a dodge roll or vice versa - some bosses and enemies are much faster at switching between moves
Spells can get interrupted and are a bit slower to use than melee attacks so often aren't optimal for crowd control unless you first move away a bit
No item drop magnet until you get the treasure magnet ability (lvl 9 for a staff focused char so pretty early) and its radius is still small - can apparently equip two+ later on (your party members can also gain it) to make it stack. To gain it twice with Sora you'll have to reach lvl 72?
Blocking and dodging are mapped to the same button - have to be standing still to block
Takes a while until you can swim faster (lets you swim against the current) underwater and it's pretty underused - didn't seem to work as a dodge vs ursula's suck attack
Cool but underused flight ability in Neverland (once you get to fly around the city you can really only fly near the clock tower)
Limited control over ally behavior (they die pretty easily if you do the worlds in a different order and it would've been useful to have them rush certain enemies or bosses at key points to distract them, they can also be unreliable at using healing items when you're near death and a boss is spamming strong attacks that take priority over your healing yourself; categories: regular attacks, offensive and defensive magic, advanced magic, hp items, mp items) - Secret of Mana
Trinity marks (interact with these with the right party and they let you access items or new parts of the current area - basically a party specific lock) - they don't get more interesting later. A bunch of them just reward you with minor treasure as well
Sora and the others talk a lot during combat - can't be turned off
Temporary point of no return at final dungeon
Kind of jarring vocal pop song during the ending
-
Repeated alarm sfx at critically low HP
Some control/interface issues (no control config (bosses can spam strong attacks that take priority over your healing yourself (some delay for an animation)+no shortcut combos for healing items, kinda weird mappings - jump on circle/attack on cross/dodge on square, can't map right stick to camera control - uses L2 and R2 (fixed in remaster)), some movement delay after landing from a jump, performing a move/casting a spell during knockback means the game won't register the action, attacking near a ledge makes you move forward and fall off (particularly bad when you get attacked during platforming segments or at the tower in halloween land+a couple of places in the bastion dungeon), no area maps or mini-maps (wonderland and deep jungle can sometimes get confusing), some camera issues in tight spaces - stops instead of letting you see through walls and sometimes changes the angle suddenly while moving, kinda slow manual camera rotation (both manual and automatic but automatic is too slow, there is a quick turn feature at least - L2+R2), partially inverted camera in FP mode - can't make it consistent, can't yaw the camera - can make exploration or simple navigation harder than it should be given the lack of maps too (can also get annoying when you're on a height and want to look down without stopping and going into FP view), so-so hit detection when trying to jump onto ladders and trees - can easily jump off of them, sometimes unforgiving hit detection around platform edges, can't equip gear directly from the shop menu and can't see who benefits from a piece of gear in the same menu+can't see the special effects of something you're selling while in the shop menu, can't see a char's stats when using a stat boosting item in the main menu, the game sometimes changes the angle when moving between rooms so that if you keep pressing the same direction you go back to where you came from, weird how both pressing l/r or u/d in the ship designer can change part category, no "cancel last action" button in the ship editor, can't rotate a ship outside of the editor itself to check its parts+lacking info on each ship in the blueprints menu (can't see a list of the individual parts and the attack level isn't shown here - only in the inventory menu for some reason), can't access your main inventory/stock during combat even if you're far away from the nearest enemy (means you also can't change your spell shortcuts during a boss fight), often can't open a door or interact with an object due to being in combat - leads to it not being avoidable at times, can't rotate the camera at all while big in the wonderland maze (can barely do it in some parts of the bastion), in the garage/blueprint menu you can't see exactly what parts you need to build a certain ship, limited gummi block inventory and if you find parts you have a full stock of in a chest then you're just told you can't carry any more, can't see stats and class on the "form party" screen, no item descriptions in the synthesize shop, weird how you can't stay focused on tiger head's eyes when attacking them, oddly slow dialogue while on the hub map, can't block/parry with square underwater - only by attacking when an enemy attacks, very slow elevator cutscenes in the bastion dungeon)
Non-interactive ship designing tutorial (can at least review the controls afterwards with select)
Some trial & error (if you replay a cup in the coliseum there's a prompt right after you win asking if you want to start over and the response defaults to yes, the game sometimes doesn't show what opened when activating a switch, the stat choices in the intro have another fairly important effect in that you gain certain abilities sooner or later depending on them (for example you gain block at lvl 33 if you picked staff as your focus whereas you gain it at lvl 15 if you picked shield): "With the sword you have less MP, more attack and learn more combo oriented techniques but you will also learn abilities that increase drop rates way later like level 80 or so. With the shield you get defense skills, decent MP, no Combo skills until way later but that doesn't matter (?) and you get Lucky Striker early on which increases drop rate of rare items. The wand is probably the second best choice as you get lucky striker mid-way (and synthesizing isn't that relevant until mid-game anyway) and more MP for spamming special attacks and for spells" - it also affects max inventory capacity (between 6-8 items), if you go to world 3/deep jungle then you'll end up crashing there (even if you went there first) and have to explore that world though it's possible to exit the world before completing it as soon as you reach a save point, most boss patterns, the game is sometimes inconsistent about which platforms can be grabbed and climbed onto, getting to the "tunnel" room in the jungle world - have to drop down on the right side of the tree house and there's no clue, two of the flowers in wonderland aren't worth trading with, lack of good landmarks in most of the whale dungeon, one-way path back to the square in halloween land, so-so directions at a couple of points in Atlantica, some sudden solo fights)
Unskippable cutscenes including summons (would've been best if you could skip dialogue on a per sentence or at least scene basis, some rather slow scenes)+unskippable staff rol - fixed in remaster
Sometimes uneven difficulty (spikes: deep jungle boss - can do the area itself without too much trouble right after traverse town but here your allies die quickly and then you die in about 3 hits, coliseum battle gauntlet from the cloud onwards even if you did most of world 3 before it (no chance to heal in-between fights until after cloud and cloud and cerberus are way harder than what you face before them, can't level grind outside of this battle gauntlet), riku boss due to the lack of an item shortcut menu and healing spells being a bit slow (he can take you out in 2-3 hits+can interrupt your best combos); dips: Jafar, Phil cup, oogie boogie second fight (tower form), Neverland, second coliseum cup until the boss, first giant form of the final boss)
The "pooh's honey hunt" mini-game (leaves get in the way, can't grab on to branches and climb up, hard to judge depth/distances during platforming and if you stand in one spot higher up and lock in it gets s easy it's boring, goes on for too long; no reward if you do it again even thoug the game implies you should when visiting the rabbit)
Some dead space
Some unfinished feeling aspects to the worldbuilding ("closed off for now" message on some doors, how the dalmatians side quest is introduced with a generic text box, how the ship designer is introduced out of the blue by Chip (who you haven't talked to before) when entering the hub map, scripting error where the owl in the 100 acres world acts as if you hadn't met before if you get to where there are missing pages before talking to it outside of winnie's house, another scripting error where ariel won't introduce her home if you go there before going to her father, the text messages when interacting with some objects in the bastion that just tell you where to go)
Unskippable tutorial (not that long though)
Some tedious aspects (no automatic re-equipment of used consumables (from the party stock) - added in the sequel, sometimes long pauses in the action during rail shooter segments, the vine swinging part in deep jungle would've been better if you could alter the trajectory of a vine or at least if it was consistent about using the jump on/off command instead of manual jumping (the lock-on also could've prioritized a bit better here), game could've let you unlock a shortcut to the tree house in the jungle area since it makees you backtrack there several times during that segment, no shop in the deep jungle world nor in the coliseum world nor in the wonderland world! - need to use ethers and potions on the flowers in the latter and mega ethers won't do (potions could've dropped more frequently and/or dropped during the rail shooter segments), enemies/chests/trinity marks keep dropping what you already have a full stock of such as MP when you have full MP, second ursula fight - either a battle of attrition or drawn out as you have to keep moving+move far away at times (second phase) to dodge all the spells, gargoyle fight for pretty much the same reasons and the final boss' last phase is pretty much the same (can't use combo attacks while flying), final woods chapter - slow escort segment, having to fight behemoth 5 times!, overly drawn out final dungeon and final boss fight)
Pretty cliché story with some stupid lines at times (your are the chosen one, darknezz, kingdom hearts=the force but also affected by the power of friendship, meeting the oracle for the first time - "meaningless to learn", )
Some arbitrary invisible walls (gets pretty bad in the area before the final dungeon)
Can't stack boxes on top of each other to climb even higher - one of them just breaks when you try it
Weird how combo attacks keep going without a target (would've been good if you could aim it towards the next enemy as you go or it did it automatically though the invincibility time does still help at times)
No 2-player co-op - Secret of Mana
Can't switch to the other party members - Secret of Mana
Pointless time trial mini-game in the jungle? (no reward)
Some shots from off screen
NPCs tend to just stand in place waiting to be interacted with outside of cutscenes though story relevant ones will at least appear in different spots as you progress the story in each world
Some plot oddities (weird how maleficient doesn't even scold Riku after the whale world boss, mickey mouse is pretty much forgotten about after the intro until the ending) and conveniences (the party suddenly let themselves be captured by the pirate captain's soldiers in neverland, weird how donald and goofy just leave you at the bastion)
Many chests contain ship upgrades which is bad since that mini-game isn't particularly good and you can skip a big chunk of it
Mostly empty boxes lying around in the early game (these also respawn)
Can't save a redesigned excalibur model as a new blueprint?
Annoying how some enemies will stay at 1 HP until they've finished with their attack animation?
Kind of pointless "escape as a heartless" sequence in the bastion (can't roll or do any other moves, no encounters or puzzles, no sense of urgency)
Menu-based combo attack timing cues means you look at the menu instead of what's happening on screen when using them
Wird 7+ second delay after each encounter in the final area
Bugs:
-Occasionally glitchy hit detection when jumping onto a higher platform: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32vbVpHnT90&t=2h48m26s
Notes:
-Went with a +Magic/-Def build in the beginning
-Area maps: https://mapgenie.io/kingdom-hearts-3d/maps/traverse-town-sora
-Remaster comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-64N1rlJC4
Level Design-7 Frustration-7/8* Fun-7 Originality-5.5
Overall Score-7
*Doing worlds out of order w/o grinding
**Rail shooter levels
+
Difficulty options (normal or expert - enemies deal 2x damage on expert but it's also easier to unlock the secret ending/final episode (don't need to complete Hades cup or save the 99 dalmatians)+shows a battle record (combat stats) at the end of the game; the remaster adds an easy mode and changes some aspects of each mode)
Nice visual effects (one huge boss model, spells), very good animation and pretty good art direction
Target lock-on and target switching (can lock onto enemies, NPCs and objects; move around freely during lock-on - you don't circle around the target like in Zelda: OoT)
Spell shortcut combos (l1+face button, only up to three spells though and there isn't one for items)
Homebase spaceship (gummi ship) that can be teleported to via most found save points. After the first three worlds you'll also be able to warp between visited worlds meaning you don't have to play the rail shooter mini-game to travel to them
Fight alongside NPC allies after the intro gameplay (3 person party, can switch out members at will; Secret of Mana etc.)
Encourages aggressive play by letting you regain MP by hitting enemies - later used in Bunny Must Die and Hollow Knight for example
Learn new movement and combat abilities as you go (dodge roll - after first boss, high jump - whale world, glide jump - neverland; guard/block, counter attack - block or parry (attack as the enemy is attacking) an attack and it replaces the attack command for a sec or two, )
Decent-good bosses overall (multiple destructible parts for some bosses - used in some earlier shooters (Out Zone, Gokujo Parodius: Kako no Eiko o Motomete, Assault Suits Leynos 2, Einhänder, Radiant Silvergun) and FF games, good: cerberus, second whale world boss, oogie boogie (first form), hercules, maleficient's first form, final boss' third form)
Random but (mostly) avoidable and seamless combat encounters
Can train against some NPCs in the first area (optional, weird how beating the greyhaired guy (Riku) is much harder but only rewards you with a potion though, no reward for beating the younger kids)
Some mini-games (on foot race - decent, flying carpet escape segment - meh and so-so controls, sliding down a giant tree when revisiting deep jungle - decent though there's a few issues (tarzan kinda gets in the way, camera focuses on sora instead of the ground when jumping (can destroy most obstacles with the sword however), can't finish all paths in one go - have to replay it 5 times), tigger bouncing game (catch tigger when he tries to jump on the carrots) - meh, tigger jumping simon says game & baseball game - not that good, barrel breaking - decent and you can knock barrels into others to break both)
Spaceship editor with decent depth (switch out parts on a grid system) and you can pick up various new models over the course of the game although only some can be redesigned
Various hidden and out of reach items incentivizes exploration
Some minor sequence breaking possibilities (attack repeatedly in mid-air to reach further when jumping - lets you reach some chests earlier)
Some spell interaction with the environment for optional rewards (potion creation in the jungle camp w/ ice and fire, shocking some of the flowers in wonderland, etc.)
Named rooms (Jet Set Willy)
Some shortcuts (there could've been more of them at times though)
Ability customization using an ability point system (similar to FF5 - you have a pool of AP and can pick between abilities to activate until you run out of points, some equipment increases the pool besides leveling up)
Scan (see enemy HP) is a passive ability here
Some decent puzzles (mushroom "enemies" doing pantomimes to clue you in on what spell to use one them, spatial reasoning, clock tower's small doors, bastion library and hovering chests)
Battle arena with optional boss fights (coliseum world after your first visit)
Some good enemy design (the fat guys, the shield soldiers)
New enemies sometimes appear when revisiting previous worlds with new abilities or trinity keys (generally they are enemies you've seen elsewhere before though)
Can deflect some enemy shots with the sword
Pretty good sense of vulnerability during the bastion world
Two hidden bosses (clock tower and agrabah after locking the bastion world)
Can stand on certain bosses - Mega Man Legends, later expanded upon in Shadow of the Colossus
+/-
Partially non-linear structure after the first two areas (can travel to three different worlds with the ship though they vary in difficulty (enemy strength is shown as "battle lvl" on the hub map screen) and world 3/deep jungle right away is quite tough (unless you grind and/or go back and stock up on a bunch of potions, same with world 2/coliseum), have to finish Deep Jungle before you can talk to Cid about navigation gummi blocks even if you got one from elsewhere before that; after returning to traverse town and beating a boss you can go to the battle arena or two new worlds (or the first chapter of 100 acre wood though there's not much to it) - these are hidden before getting to them so you can't see which one is easier, three new locations become available after finishing agrabah (monstro, halloween, atlantica (after beating halloween (or atlantica?) you can go to neverland as well); one new chapter of 100 acre wood as well), one new coliseum cup and one more book page (100 acre wood chapter) become available after finishing the whale/monstro world)
Some backtracking for optional items with new movement abilities and elemental spells and sometimes to progress (atlantica water current, glide jump is quite helpful in the bastion dungeon but might not be mandatory)
Mandatory rail shooter segments when moving to new planets (similar to Star Fox but not nearly as good, no lock-on+sensitive aiming and kinda hard to line up with targets, dropped items sometimes end up where you can't reach them since you can't scroll the screen, can't change the view angle - makes it a bit hard to tell if you're about to crash with smaller objects, can't accelerate nor tilt your ship - upgrades?, can't switch to FP view, difficulty barely progresses throughout the game and in the late game you can mostly skip it with the warp feature; one positive is the branching paths while moving between some locations)
Some choice over your starting stats however the effects could've been explained better (selecting the sword first increases your attack by two, the shield your defense by two, and the rod your MP by one. Selecting the sword second decreases your attack by one, the shield your defense by one, and the rod your AP (ability points) by one; see below)
Collectathon elements (10+ items during the intro gameplay on the island, 6 projector slides in the jungle camp to progress the story there, 51 dalmatians to complete 100 acre wood - not too bad, synthesizing one of each item to be able to synthesize the ultima weapon (requires a lot of ingredient items) - no thanks)
Hub map (interplanetary/dimensional travel, can only travel to a destination that connects to the world/area you're at - see Clash at Demonhead or Alundra 2)
There's also a short "personality" quiz after the stat priority choice and this actually affects how long it takes to level up at certain points of the game - should've been at least hinted at. Pick the second answer on each for an unchanged experience where leveling up isn't slower or faster at any point (the third answer makes the game harder as you'll be around lvl 50 when reaching the final area and that's when it takes positive effect by making leveling faster after having made it slower for the first 50 levels)
Pretty frequent save points which also restore HP and MP (multiple slots, shows location and current lvl+money+time taken)
Sometimes silly character costumes
Starts with two basic fetch quests
Enemy drops disappear after a few seconds
Parallel worlds/interdimensional travel theme (sora's world+ff world+various disney worlds with short stories based on their movies)
There's a basic journal feature to vaguely recap what you've been doing+it includes a character encyclopedia and a bestiary but no real quest log and no message log and you can't talk amongst the party to recap what you were doing/about to do if you've taken a break from the game (see PSIV; sometimes you might lost track of where to go if you take breaks from the game). While there's a basic trinity list in it, it doesn't show per location progress, only totals for each color.
Pretty frequent combat encounters in hostile areas
Plenty of fan service (plenty of FF and Disney characters make appearances and some are playable? (no pre-FF6 chars though and few non-Nomura designs used), the FF characters tend to behave and/or look kind of different though and some have different VAs)
Which abilities you gain earlier based on if you picked sword/shield/staff in the intro doesn't really make sense - for example you gain berserk (more damage at critically low HP) and slapshot (rapid fire strikes w/ some crit chance) earlier with shield as a focus
The game doesn't pause when browsing commands or your item inventory during combat
Some tutorial messages pause gameplay and they're not voiced
Can't rotate the camera while locking onto something (probably because of its uses outside of combat but it can occasionally be annoying)
Funny how Goofy is often smarter than Donald and Sora
Some worlds are very small (coliseum, ) and the worlds are kinda small in general
The shrinking and growing mechanic in Wonderland is a bit underdeveloped but the surreal elements of the area are pretty cool
Can't cancel an attack animation with a dodge roll or vice versa - some bosses and enemies are much faster at switching between moves
Spells can get interrupted and are a bit slower to use than melee attacks so often aren't optimal for crowd control unless you first move away a bit
No item drop magnet until you get the treasure magnet ability (lvl 9 for a staff focused char so pretty early) and its radius is still small - can apparently equip two+ later on (your party members can also gain it) to make it stack. To gain it twice with Sora you'll have to reach lvl 72?
Blocking and dodging are mapped to the same button - have to be standing still to block
Takes a while until you can swim faster (lets you swim against the current) underwater and it's pretty underused - didn't seem to work as a dodge vs ursula's suck attack
Cool but underused flight ability in Neverland (once you get to fly around the city you can really only fly near the clock tower)
Limited control over ally behavior (they die pretty easily if you do the worlds in a different order and it would've been useful to have them rush certain enemies or bosses at key points to distract them, they can also be unreliable at using healing items when you're near death and a boss is spamming strong attacks that take priority over your healing yourself; categories: regular attacks, offensive and defensive magic, advanced magic, hp items, mp items) - Secret of Mana
Trinity marks (interact with these with the right party and they let you access items or new parts of the current area - basically a party specific lock) - they don't get more interesting later. A bunch of them just reward you with minor treasure as well
Sora and the others talk a lot during combat - can't be turned off
Temporary point of no return at final dungeon
Kind of jarring vocal pop song during the ending
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Repeated alarm sfx at critically low HP
Some control/interface issues (no control config (bosses can spam strong attacks that take priority over your healing yourself (some delay for an animation)+no shortcut combos for healing items, kinda weird mappings - jump on circle/attack on cross/dodge on square, can't map right stick to camera control - uses L2 and R2 (fixed in remaster)), some movement delay after landing from a jump, performing a move/casting a spell during knockback means the game won't register the action, attacking near a ledge makes you move forward and fall off (particularly bad when you get attacked during platforming segments or at the tower in halloween land+a couple of places in the bastion dungeon), no area maps or mini-maps (wonderland and deep jungle can sometimes get confusing), some camera issues in tight spaces - stops instead of letting you see through walls and sometimes changes the angle suddenly while moving, kinda slow manual camera rotation (both manual and automatic but automatic is too slow, there is a quick turn feature at least - L2+R2), partially inverted camera in FP mode - can't make it consistent, can't yaw the camera - can make exploration or simple navigation harder than it should be given the lack of maps too (can also get annoying when you're on a height and want to look down without stopping and going into FP view), so-so hit detection when trying to jump onto ladders and trees - can easily jump off of them, sometimes unforgiving hit detection around platform edges, can't equip gear directly from the shop menu and can't see who benefits from a piece of gear in the same menu+can't see the special effects of something you're selling while in the shop menu, can't see a char's stats when using a stat boosting item in the main menu, the game sometimes changes the angle when moving between rooms so that if you keep pressing the same direction you go back to where you came from, weird how both pressing l/r or u/d in the ship designer can change part category, no "cancel last action" button in the ship editor, can't rotate a ship outside of the editor itself to check its parts+lacking info on each ship in the blueprints menu (can't see a list of the individual parts and the attack level isn't shown here - only in the inventory menu for some reason), can't access your main inventory/stock during combat even if you're far away from the nearest enemy (means you also can't change your spell shortcuts during a boss fight), often can't open a door or interact with an object due to being in combat - leads to it not being avoidable at times, can't rotate the camera at all while big in the wonderland maze (can barely do it in some parts of the bastion), in the garage/blueprint menu you can't see exactly what parts you need to build a certain ship, limited gummi block inventory and if you find parts you have a full stock of in a chest then you're just told you can't carry any more, can't see stats and class on the "form party" screen, no item descriptions in the synthesize shop, weird how you can't stay focused on tiger head's eyes when attacking them, oddly slow dialogue while on the hub map, can't block/parry with square underwater - only by attacking when an enemy attacks, very slow elevator cutscenes in the bastion dungeon)
Non-interactive ship designing tutorial (can at least review the controls afterwards with select)
Some trial & error (if you replay a cup in the coliseum there's a prompt right after you win asking if you want to start over and the response defaults to yes, the game sometimes doesn't show what opened when activating a switch, the stat choices in the intro have another fairly important effect in that you gain certain abilities sooner or later depending on them (for example you gain block at lvl 33 if you picked staff as your focus whereas you gain it at lvl 15 if you picked shield): "With the sword you have less MP, more attack and learn more combo oriented techniques but you will also learn abilities that increase drop rates way later like level 80 or so. With the shield you get defense skills, decent MP, no Combo skills until way later but that doesn't matter (?) and you get Lucky Striker early on which increases drop rate of rare items. The wand is probably the second best choice as you get lucky striker mid-way (and synthesizing isn't that relevant until mid-game anyway) and more MP for spamming special attacks and for spells" - it also affects max inventory capacity (between 6-8 items), if you go to world 3/deep jungle then you'll end up crashing there (even if you went there first) and have to explore that world though it's possible to exit the world before completing it as soon as you reach a save point, most boss patterns, the game is sometimes inconsistent about which platforms can be grabbed and climbed onto, getting to the "tunnel" room in the jungle world - have to drop down on the right side of the tree house and there's no clue, two of the flowers in wonderland aren't worth trading with, lack of good landmarks in most of the whale dungeon, one-way path back to the square in halloween land, so-so directions at a couple of points in Atlantica, some sudden solo fights)
Unskippable cutscenes including summons (would've been best if you could skip dialogue on a per sentence or at least scene basis, some rather slow scenes)+unskippable staff rol - fixed in remaster
Sometimes uneven difficulty (spikes: deep jungle boss - can do the area itself without too much trouble right after traverse town but here your allies die quickly and then you die in about 3 hits, coliseum battle gauntlet from the cloud onwards even if you did most of world 3 before it (no chance to heal in-between fights until after cloud and cloud and cerberus are way harder than what you face before them, can't level grind outside of this battle gauntlet), riku boss due to the lack of an item shortcut menu and healing spells being a bit slow (he can take you out in 2-3 hits+can interrupt your best combos); dips: Jafar, Phil cup, oogie boogie second fight (tower form), Neverland, second coliseum cup until the boss, first giant form of the final boss)
The "pooh's honey hunt" mini-game (leaves get in the way, can't grab on to branches and climb up, hard to judge depth/distances during platforming and if you stand in one spot higher up and lock in it gets s easy it's boring, goes on for too long; no reward if you do it again even thoug the game implies you should when visiting the rabbit)
Some dead space
Some unfinished feeling aspects to the worldbuilding ("closed off for now" message on some doors, how the dalmatians side quest is introduced with a generic text box, how the ship designer is introduced out of the blue by Chip (who you haven't talked to before) when entering the hub map, scripting error where the owl in the 100 acres world acts as if you hadn't met before if you get to where there are missing pages before talking to it outside of winnie's house, another scripting error where ariel won't introduce her home if you go there before going to her father, the text messages when interacting with some objects in the bastion that just tell you where to go)
Unskippable tutorial (not that long though)
Some tedious aspects (no automatic re-equipment of used consumables (from the party stock) - added in the sequel, sometimes long pauses in the action during rail shooter segments, the vine swinging part in deep jungle would've been better if you could alter the trajectory of a vine or at least if it was consistent about using the jump on/off command instead of manual jumping (the lock-on also could've prioritized a bit better here), game could've let you unlock a shortcut to the tree house in the jungle area since it makees you backtrack there several times during that segment, no shop in the deep jungle world nor in the coliseum world nor in the wonderland world! - need to use ethers and potions on the flowers in the latter and mega ethers won't do (potions could've dropped more frequently and/or dropped during the rail shooter segments), enemies/chests/trinity marks keep dropping what you already have a full stock of such as MP when you have full MP, second ursula fight - either a battle of attrition or drawn out as you have to keep moving+move far away at times (second phase) to dodge all the spells, gargoyle fight for pretty much the same reasons and the final boss' last phase is pretty much the same (can't use combo attacks while flying), final woods chapter - slow escort segment, having to fight behemoth 5 times!, overly drawn out final dungeon and final boss fight)
Pretty cliché story with some stupid lines at times (your are the chosen one, darknezz, kingdom hearts=the force but also affected by the power of friendship, meeting the oracle for the first time - "meaningless to learn", )
Some arbitrary invisible walls (gets pretty bad in the area before the final dungeon)
Can't stack boxes on top of each other to climb even higher - one of them just breaks when you try it
Weird how combo attacks keep going without a target (would've been good if you could aim it towards the next enemy as you go or it did it automatically though the invincibility time does still help at times)
No 2-player co-op - Secret of Mana
Can't switch to the other party members - Secret of Mana
Pointless time trial mini-game in the jungle? (no reward)
Some shots from off screen
NPCs tend to just stand in place waiting to be interacted with outside of cutscenes though story relevant ones will at least appear in different spots as you progress the story in each world
Some plot oddities (weird how maleficient doesn't even scold Riku after the whale world boss, mickey mouse is pretty much forgotten about after the intro until the ending) and conveniences (the party suddenly let themselves be captured by the pirate captain's soldiers in neverland, weird how donald and goofy just leave you at the bastion)
Many chests contain ship upgrades which is bad since that mini-game isn't particularly good and you can skip a big chunk of it
Mostly empty boxes lying around in the early game (these also respawn)
Can't save a redesigned excalibur model as a new blueprint?
Annoying how some enemies will stay at 1 HP until they've finished with their attack animation?
Kind of pointless "escape as a heartless" sequence in the bastion (can't roll or do any other moves, no encounters or puzzles, no sense of urgency)
Menu-based combo attack timing cues means you look at the menu instead of what's happening on screen when using them
Wird 7+ second delay after each encounter in the final area
Bugs:
-Occasionally glitchy hit detection when jumping onto a higher platform: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32vbVpHnT90&t=2h48m26s
Notes:
-Went with a +Magic/-Def build in the beginning
-Area maps: https://mapgenie.io/kingdom-hearts-3d/maps/traverse-town-sora
-Remaster comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-64N1rlJC4