I don't have much to say that's new about this game or the original, this is a remake that lives up to the original- and even surpasses it. Something I was hopeful for yet didn't quite expect with how most remakes turn out.

The team that made this clearly holds love for the original and took tons of care to preserve its essence in as many ways possible. While it does miss some of the ludo-narrative poignance of the original and certain charms or scenes the original had, it makes up for it fully in reimagining Persona 3 in such a fresh, vivid and more satisfying manner by delving deeper into characters they couldn't do the same for in the original.

My few gripes are with the audiovisual aspects, I like the OST a lot but it's certainly not as iconic as the original which is fine but in certain songs it's a little too off. And for the visuals, on most fronts this is one of the prettiest games I've ever played yet the lighting can be completely out of sync in certain areas. Besides the things I've mentioned, this game is essentially perfect.

Now for a little personal footnote, this game came into my life when I started questioning the meaning of life and why I was alive at a very tender time of my pre-teen years, still unaware of how to deal with a loss. Back then, this game was a guiding light to me, it helped me sit with my fear of death despite how much it posessed me. Death is something I fear even to this day, this moment. But unlike 10 years ago, this time I know the meaning of my life is mine and the people I surround myself by to find. It's alright if I can't find it as long as I'm alive, my life already means something to the people that love me.

And that's fine enough, no matter when or how I pass. This realization only came to me then due to this game and today it comes back into my life in a further fully realized manner to pat me on my back and remind me of the same, to keep walking on and adore the burning glimmer and brilliance in life even if it means enduring all the suffering I have to face or that it'll all come to an end.

And as the game says, "Nothing's a waste...my life will have meaning."

"The smaller the world is, the easier it is to control. So next, in order to tell the story of the world bit by bit, why don't we expand the world bit by bit? And then if we write book after book, the world will continually expand, forever."

Just a quick note: this is purely a review of the Union Cross "season" rather than the original X, on which my feelings are broadly positive, at least in terms of story. Gameplay-wise, this is all dogshit.

Anyway! This is probably the worst Kingdom Hearts game. In my reviews of prior titles, I've noted that I'm not especially interested in the wider Plot of the series, preferring more what each individual game does with it's own themes and characters. From that lens, there's at least one thing I truly love in every Kingdom Hearts. Yes, even Coded. Yes, even 3. The games have an affecting emotional truth at the core of their stories that shine through the tangled thorns of Lore that the series increasingly insists upon itself.

Union Cross is the apotheosis of everything about Kingdom Hearts I have grown to dislike. For such an arduously long game that demands so much time even to just watch the cutscenes on youtube, it is a vacuous, empty space, with nothing to say or impart. It is pure, unconstrained, Lore, hours upon hours of teeth-grindingly slow setup and teasing and exposition that exists to set up future games and explain things no one cared to have explained. So much of Union Cross is devoted to explaining the return of Maleficent, an increasingly vestigial character the series hasn't known what the fuck to do with since the very first game. And the rest of it is an agonisingly slow trailer for future Kingdom Hearts Content, doled out at a miserly pace over six years.

It feels particularly insidious to lock these story details behind a miserable grind that is constantly dangling the opportunity to pay money to make the road ahead a little easier. People like Everglow on youtube are heroes for trudging through this mire so we don't have to. Even if Union Cross told the best story in the world, this kind of horrifically manipulative preying upon fan investment would damn it. But it doesn't. It's hard to even say it has a story at all.

Yes, it has a plot and characters, even some potentially interesting characters or cool scenes. But they are absolutely swallowed by the black hole of endless exposition and explanation. Nothing really happens, nothing really means anything, and nothing says anything. It's just...stuff. Hours and hours of stuff.

This isn't what stories are. Stories say something, do something. They don't - shouldn't - exist simply to feed more future Plot. I'd call this the damage the Marvel Cinematic Universe did, but people were wikibrained before then. This impulse, to pile plot upon plot upon plot, nothing but Plot in this barren land, to forgo substance or nuance or theme or feeling, is a virus that is eating away at the heart of this series, and many others. It can be fun to speculate about what's going to happen next, sure. But you need something more. You can't fall in love with a Wikipedia plot summary, you just can't.

Believe it or not, I am interested in where this series goes next. But none of that excitement comes from the lore dumps in Union Cross, or Melody of Memory, for that matter. It comes from how the secret ending of KH3 and its Re:Mind DLC made me feel. Because Union Cross made me feel almost nothing.

KINGDOM HEARTS SEXISM WATCH: Strelitzia exists entirely to be Fridged. You can play as a girl the whole way through, at long last, and even change your gender and gender presentation on the fly! Hooray!

(having just watched the ending) Ron Howard Voice.

I downloaded and played this game in high school exclusively so I could force people to watch me play it so they'd think I was weird. Little did I know that I didn't need to performatively play this game for people to think that, since my voltron legendary defender home screen would have been enough to convince them.

Anyway, this game is not very fun, it's mostly just force feeding this poor freak of nature food until he gets enough energy to talk to you seemingly forever. I never saw much of a deviation in gameplay while playing it, although I admit I didn't get super far in it since I'd only ever play it when someone seemed like they wanted to engage with me. I'd pull my phone out, start shoving carrots down my equestrian partner's gullet and making him run on a treadmill, and then angle my phone in such a way that the person trying to make an honest human connection to me would see enough of the screen to ask what I was playing. I would then start a conversation about the game, literally lying about some aspects of it to make it sound more bizarre, not make any new friends, and then feel proud of myself believing to have weirded out one of my supposed enemies.

So, in conclusion, this game is good if you're trying to repel people from you, but not so good for much else. So only really give it a try if you like voltron legendary defender, I guess.