Managing Editor Ethan Miller

Kingdom Hearts III was a magical experience for me, but the ending left quite a few questions with me not being completely satisfied. The post game content was also lacking, with the absence of a fun superboss and data battles like in Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix extremely noticeable. Going into Re Mind I had high hopes to get these issues addressed, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed.

Re Mind includes several portions. The main portion is the Re Mind Episode, which takes place during the period right after the final fight with Xehanort and right before the ending as Sora seeks to rescue Kairi. This Episode allows the player to experience some of the existing Organisation XIII battles with the ability to play as other characters, like being able to fight Saïx as Roxas. A fair bit of the Re Mind Episode was retreaded ground. These fights we’ve already played before in the base game, but playing as some of the other characters was really fun. Near the end of the Re Mind Episode was the best part, with Scala Ad Caelum, the last world of the base KHIII, but it was only home of a battle and wasn’t explorabole, finally being expanded upon. Scala was beautiful, with a lot of interactable elements during exploration. The Re Mind Episode fills in gaps in the ending and it added an emotional gut punch that the base game was missing.

The second main portion is the Limit Cut Episode which features an excruciating gauntlet of bosses a la Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix data battles, where the player gets to fight the members of the Real Orginisation XIII one on one. These fights are fun and took my all, requiring me to study the patterns over multiple deaths. These bosses are some of the best in the series. I prefered most of them over the ones in II Final Mix, with some exceptions. Luxord was a bit too gimmicky for my liking, with the focus on his cards being mostly annoying, but still enjoyable. These bosses were a blast to fight and some of the most fun I had in the entire series.

The third portion is the Secret Episode. While I won’t say much to avoid spoilers, the Secret Episode sheds some light on the future of the series, adding a lot to the lore of the series and featuring one of the hardest superbosses in the series. While the Secret Episode isn’t as long as I would’ve liked, being only the fight and some cutscenes, the fight itself more than made up for it.

The DLC includes some smaller content that adds to the fun. Data Greeting is a surprisingly in-depth photo mode that I had a lot of fun with. There is also the Premium Menu, which gives the player the ability to tweak the difficulty to their liking, with several EZ and Pro Codes. I didn’t mess with these as much but it’s cool to have them here.

Overall, Re Mind elevated Kingdom Hearts III for me leagues. I had high hopes and all of my expectations were blown away. It took KHIII from my third favourite game in the series to one of my favourite games of all time. I am extremely excited for the future of the series.