Kingdom Hearts 3 Reviews: 9 Early Reactions You Need To See

4. The Gummi Ship System Will Divide Fans (Again)

The Gummi Ship is also back as your main transportation between worlds. If you’ve played the series, you probably already know how you feel about it. It’s polarizing, and Kingdom Hearts III does nothing to change your mind. You can customize the ship more than ever before (my favorite part) and have greater flexibility in going off the beaten path for treasure spheres and other discoveries. However, it still feels like busywork – an obstacle you have to get through to get to the main attraction. - Game Informer

Linking the worlds together is a wonderfully revamped Gummi Ship system, which I actually enjoyed for the first time in the entire Kingdom Hearts series. It’s still not nearly as thrilling as the ground combat, and battles do revert to an on-rails system, but the way it’s set in a series of open, explorable star systems and gives so much more control over the ship makes these sections a more palatable interstitial. - IGN

To get anywhere new you have to traverse a space filled with enemies, obstacles and the occasional treasure sphere - floating puzzles with goodies in - but it's the blandest part of the game, missing any Disney magic and instead feeling like a slightly dusty arcade game. You can expand your Gummi Ship, adding new blocks, weapons and, um, a giant puppy dog, but I'd happily have traded it all away for a cute three second animation. For a game that's so aggressively fun the rest of the time the space travel felt super lackluster. - Gamesradar

The Gummi Ship from the previous games makes a return in KH3, and true to form, it's once again a major point of division among critics.

Even those who don't seem terribly fussed by its inclusion at least agree that it can be a bit of a chore, while many outright deride it as an unnecessary waste of time that ultimately bogs the game down.

Even with the more wide-open ship exploration in this game, the consensus seems to be that if this aspect of the series irritated you in prior entries, you shouldn't expect to have your mind changed this time around.