while I appreciate it more now than when I played it on 3DS, it will remain second-to-last place in the series for me-- right above the undisputed basement dweller that is Re:Coded, of course. don't really like the dream eaters (for the love of Xion, please just give me Donald and Goofy), especially their tie to abilities and commands. also don't much care for flowmotion. and that's literally the two main facets of gameplay, so not enjoying them is going to make this game difficult to enjoy. took a bit of doing to get used to playing the way this game wants you to-- and you have to, cause playing it like 1 or 2 or even BBS is going to be a struggle. took about till the end of The Grid for things to click into place this time. and on that note, The Grid is awful and is one of the worst worlds in the series, if not the worst. just garbage. But I did find a good enough groove with the gameplay. And balloonra. I honestly don’t think I used balloon commands heavily or much at all when I played on 3DS and if that’s true I don’t know how I beat it, so maybe I did use balloon commands. Either way, I had fun wrecking everything with balloons in this game.

the story is confusing, but it is interesting and is the final-ish table setting for 3 and I don't dislike it. cool to have so much Riku time. and there are a lot of scenes I really like, even love. Sora shedding a tear at seeing Xion? yea that'll do it. every sighting of Terra, Aqua, Ventus, Roxas, Xion, et al. are wonderful. Lea is awesome. and Xigbar remains a great antagonist. and there is of course some real nice music, too. Feel like I’m talking myself into liking this more.

overall content to have re-experienced it, nice to get a refresher on the story. Like the story, the gameplay not so much.

and so my long drawn out series replay comes to an end. with 0.2 on the near horizon, I may finally actually finally play KH3 this year.