It’s been a full year since Kingdom Hearts 3 hit the market, and rapidly became the best-selling game in an already popular series. Diehard fans waited nearly 13 years to get their hands on the next numbered entry and experience the conclusion to Sora’s story. However, reactions to the game were divided after it came out.
Some said Kingdom Hearts 3 fulfilled their expectations, others felt it was a step backward and simply wasn’t worth the wait, and newcomers were generally baffled by the increasingly convoluted plot. A few of the foremost complaints were the game’s lack of challenge, the omission of beloved Final Fantasy characters, and an ending that didn’t bring the closure fans wanted. Now, in light of its one-year anniversary, Kingdom Hearts 3 has its first expansion in the form of the Re:Mind (or “Re Mind”) DLC. For the hefty price of $30 (or even $40 with an additional concert video), Re:Mind tries to address these problems in a painfully lazy way and without enough substantial new content to justify itself.
Re:Mind picks up at the final scene of Kingdom Hearts 3, and you’ll need a save file with the main game completed in order to start it. This cutscene is obviously riddled with spoilers, but suffice it to say that Sora resolves to rescue Kairi once again. Kairi’s ultimate fate was one of the dangling plot threads left from the original ending, and Re:Mind is meant to tie up that particular thread. In order to find Kairi, Sora must jump back in time and re-experience the game’s endmost battles through the eyes of his friends. This scenario is the first chunk of the overall DLC, and perhaps the most flatly disappointing part of it.
As Sora transfers from one guardian of light to another, he’ll find himself facing the innermost darkness in each of their hearts. In other words, he’ll have to go through the same procession of boss battles that he already took part in during the lengthy conclusion to the main game. Every single fight between the guardians of light and all the members of the true Organization XIII has been copied and pasted into this DLC, and each one plays out in exactly the same way. The only additions are a few insignificant contextual cutscenes and the option to play as a number of Sora’s Keyblade-wielding friends. At first, that sounds like an interesting prospect - until you realize that each character is only playable during their individual battles (and that Sora is stronger than all of them anyway). This first portion of Re:Mind does contain some genuinely new content later on, but even that is a letdown. Without spoiling what actually happens, here’s what it entails: a handful of uninspired challenges, a pair of elaborate quick-time events, and a reworked version of the final boss.
Recycled bosses are the recurring theme of Re:Mind, and that holds true in the second part of what it offers. The “Limit Cut” episode is unlocked after finishing the aforementioned tasks, and takes place after the events of Kingdom Hearts 3. Guess what? Other than a single new cutscene that reintroduces some fan-favorite Final Fantasy characters, Limit Cut just charges the player with defeating all the members of the true Organization XIII yet again. This time, though, you’ll have to take on their “data” versions as the newly reconstructed Data Sora. Seemingly in response to criticism that the base game was far too easy, Square Enix has buffed these bosses to an absurd degree with new moves and attack patterns. This certainly makes them different than they were, but unfortunately, it doesn’t actually make them more fun or interesting. By simply giving each boss an unending chain of attacks (which must be blocked and dodged in a single formulaic way) and reducing their vulnerability to a paper-thin window, every fight becomes a matter of rote memorization coupled with mandatory trial-and-error.
Once you’ve forced yourself through all thirteen of those mind-numbing experiences, you’ll finally be able to access the most significant part of the Re:Mind DLC: the superboss and the secret endings. Kingdom Hearts 3 was conspicuously missing a real superboss at launch, in contrast to previous KH games that had featured Sephiroth among many others. I won’t reveal the identity of the new opponent, but players might recognize them from an earlier part of the game. They are arguably the most difficult boss in the entire series, and at least they’re original and intriguing. Whether you win or lose, you’ll get one of the two secret endings that provide a mind-bending glimpse into the future of Kingdom Hearts… and it looks like things will be changing quite a bit.
As tantalizing as the superboss and secret endings may be, they’re not nearly enough to justify Re:Mind’s outrageous asking price and its sheer volume of retreaded content. The other quality-of-life improvements and secondary features in the DLC are nice, what with an exceptionally customizable photo mode and new gameplay modifiers, but they don’t really amount to a ton of added value. Frankly, this “expansion” seems to be taking advantage of Kingdom Hearts fans rather than rewarding them for their dedication. You’d honestly be better off watching videos of someone else playing through Re:Mind, unless you’re a person who absolutely needs it for themselves and has plenty of money to throw away.
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Kingdom Hearts 3 Re:Mind is available for PlayStation 4 for a minimum of $29.99, and will be released for Xbox One on February 25, 2020. A PS4 code was provided to Screen Rant for the purposes of this review.
