Disney/Pixar/Square Enix

Square Enix’s co-director for Kingdom Hearts 3 has admitted Sora’s latest adventure was made easy for an audience of newcomers.

Square Enix’s Kingdom Hearts 3 is a thrilling conclusion to Xeanhort’s saga, but one of the common complaints among fans is that it’s much easier than Sora’s first and second adventures. Although the lack of difficulty wasn’t entirely noticeable at first due to the sheer enjoyment that came with simply being back amongst Sora, Donald, and Goofy, the combat soon became monotonous as a result of there always being attractions, keyblade transformations, and OP magic. However, while fans were disappointed about the game being effortless, co-director Tai Yasue has explained that Square Enix’s goal was for Kingdom Hearts 3 to be easy in order to reach a new audience.

Speaking to Game Informer’s Kimberley Wallace at GDC 2019, Yasue admitted to receiving “a lot of feedback that said the standard and beginner were pretty easy”, but that Square Enix wanted to reach an audience who had never experienced the series.

“There was a lot of feedback that said the standard and beginner were pretty,” said Yasue. “I guess we sort of aimed for that though. For us, we wanted it to widen our audience so that was the whole point of that, but we did get a lot of [responses] saying [fans] wanted more difficult modes, so we gave them critical mode. I sort of expected that people might think that it was too easy, but we were targeting an audience. My kids, for example, who have never played Kingdom Hearts.”

While it’s unfortunate that Kingdom Hearts 3 doesn’t have any difficult boss fights like Sephiroth and even Ansem at the end of Kingdom Hearts, Yasue’s explanation does make a lot of sense, and at least we’re getting a “more technical and offensive” Critical Mode very soon.

In other Kingdom Hearts 3 news, the PlayStation Store has possibly teased DLC for the series’ 17th Anniversary on March 28.