It’s finally time to talk about Kingdom Hearts Dark Road.
When the Kingdom Hearts mobile game was shut down, Square Enix decided that Dark Road would be completed as an offline app, which I greatly appreciate.
Don’t get me wrong, Dark Road still has gameplay built around the idea that you’ll set combat to auto and grind endless battles while you do other things, but now that it’s offline, I could do that without worrying it might lose the Internet connection partway through.
That doesn’t make it any more fun, though.
In fact, starting Dark Road now probably feels grindier than ever since there are no longer daily/weekly/monthly events to help you level. But as someone who had played up until the closure, I found myself at a high enough level to make it through the finale content without too much trouble (aided by my stockpile of revive items).
You’ll never catch me saying Dark Road was fun to play… but it’s worth it for the story.
The early chapters of Dark Road doled out its story in tiny snippets interspersed with far too many grindy battles, but the finale made some major improvements in that regard.
First, battles are much less frequent. There are still some quests that just give you a string of enemies to fight, but the majority had story content.
Second, these chapters lock you into a certain party. One of my biggest criticisms of the story before this was that who you added to your party didn’t seem to matter, making the supporting characters feel interchangeable. Now that the party members were locked in, and therefore the quests could have scenes related to the specific characters in them beyond just Xehanort and Eraqus, the characters felt much more real and distinct.
Third and most importantly, the finale has some of the best story moments of Dark Road that make it (much like KHUX) a story that deserves better than a mobile game many people will probably ignore.
After that first chapter, I expected Dark Road might have some emotional moments, but I was still taken aback by how bleak some aspects of the finale feel. This might be the darkest Kingdom Hearts game.
Click for Dark Road spoilers
They set it up with that early flash-forward to Xehanort visiting the graves, but watching the most of the cast be murdered – not turned into Heartless/Nobodies, straight-up
killed – was brutal.
And the scene of Baldr falling to darkness was chilling.
Aside from these emotional scenes, it also has some comedic moments that really made the characters feel like a group of friends.
(The carpet conversation was pure gold.)
It also had some interesting twists, one which I definitely should have seen coming but had forgotten all about, one that completely took me by surprise, and some that have me questioning what will happen next.
Click for Dark Road spoilers
Bragi being Luxu… okay. Okay. I really thought the name being so similar to Braig was a coincidence, but nope! That said, the actual reveal was fantastic. Having him reference vessels and wanting to keep his body made me realize it was him, and then just following it with a casual “As if!”? Yeah, that was great.
On the other hand, the Player reincarnating into the blue-robed figure is insane, because I (like nearly everyone else) completely took that KHUX ending scene to mean the Player reincarnated as Xehanort! For it to actually be the mysterious character WITH baby Xehanort, that was clever.
And then there’s stuff like Xehanort saying he’d want 14 lives, 13 to rebuild the world and 1 to explore the new world… is that a hint that we’re going to see him again?
The story of Kingdom Hearts Dark Road is still on my mind, especially how somber and impactful some of those later scenes were. I only wish this story was available as something other than a tedious mobile game.
Kingdom Hearts Dark Road is not particularly fun to play, but its story makes it well-worth experiencing. I had some concerns when it was delayed, but the wait for the finale was definitely worth it.
Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has an upcoming short broadcast set for September 8.
