Kingdom Hearts 3: Tips & Tricks For Beginners

Kingdom Hearts 3 Tips & Tricks

Search Anywhere and Everywhere

Kingdom Hearts 3 has a lot of important little items you’ll get along the way, like synthesis materials and cooking ingredients. The best way to get a lot of these is to interact with literally anything and everything you can. Each world has a ton of different items you can interact with.

These are things like scream canisters in Monsters Inc. or ice flowers in the Frozen world. There’s any number of things to discover.

Break boxes, pots, icicles, anything you can. These more often than not yield synthesis materials or ingredients. They’ll also give you HP, MP, and drive orbs to restore your gauges.

You can also find cooking ingredients just lying on the ground, or in Chinese food boxes. You can interact with ingredients with triangle (Y). Just search high and low, and find everything you can.

Kingdom Hearts 3 Tips & Tricks

Don’t Forget Equipment, Even For Guest Characters

Equipment is a vitally important part of Kingdom Hearts 3, and the game doesn’t actually tell you much about equipping it. You can get Armor and Accessories to put on each character by buying them through the Moogle Shop, getting them as a reward for Prize Postcards, or finding them in chests. 

As you get these, remember to jump into your equipment menu and always see if you have better equipment. Focus on magic and defense for Donald, attack for Goofy, and whatever you want for Sora really, however you want to build him.

Another piece of this, however, is equipping the guest characters when you go to each Disney world. For example,when you first jump into Toy Box, Buzz and Woody won’t have any equipment.

Jump in and put a few things on to boost their stats, then when you’re done with the world unequip them and move onto the next.

Kingdom Hearts 3 Tips & Tricks

You Don’t Have to Use the Gummi Ship Much, But it Can Be Useful

The Gummi ship has a hugely expanded role in Kingdom Hearts 3. However, if you really don’t want to do it, you can largely avoid the sections. You’ll use the Gunmi Ship to fly through space in all directions and discover each of the game’s worlds.

In the end, though, you’re really just using it to get to each world, and you don’t have to explore or fight any enemies.

There are a few boss fights you’ll have to do for the story, but you can honestly get away with just the base Gummi Ship for almost all of these fights. You can also just purchase pre-made  ships to give yourself an easier time.

What the ship does come in handy for, however, is getting Munny. Flying around space and collecting the groups of floating Munny by far the fastest way to get cash. So if you need a little extra for items, just hop into space for a few and mop up that Munny.

Kingdom Hearts 3 Tips & Tricks

Try Out Every Keyblade

More than ever before, the Keyblades Sora can use in Kingdom Hearts 3 are wildly different. Outside of each one having different stats, every Keyblade gives you a unique Formchange, transforming into an entirely new weapon.

For example, the Toy Story Keyblade Formchanges into a massive hammer followed by a drill arm, while the Tangled Keyblade transforms into a Mirage Staff that can launch ranged attacks. Because of this, it’s important that you try out each and every one to see how it plays and if it’s a good fit for your style.

The good news is that you can equip up to three Keyblades at any time, and swap between them on the fly, allowing for a ton of variation on your combat style.

Every time you beat one of the worlds in Kingdom Hearts 3 you’ll get a new Keyblade, so it’s a good idea to pop that in Sora’s equipment slot and see how it pans out. This is especially true now because your Keyblades can level up and get more powerful.

The catch, however, is that you’ll need materials to upgrade them at the Moogle Shop, so you’re better off devoting your materials to Keyblades you really like, rather than spreading them out between everything.

Kingdom Hearts 3 Tips & Tricks

Keep an Ear Out For Donald and Goofy

Kingdom Hearts 3 takes a few cues from another big Square Enix game, Final Fantasy XV. Most of that inspiration comes down to Kingdom Hearts 3’s cooking minigame as well as how Donald and Goofy interact with Sora.

While you’re out exploring the many worlds, make sure to listen for Donald and Goofy calling out to you. Occasionally, your party members will say something when they see ingredients you can use for cooking, or Hidden Emblems.

Hidden Emblems are the little Mickey icons you can find, and they serve two purposes. Collecting a bunch of the Emblems will net you some neat rewards like synthesis materials and equipment, and a certain amount of Emblems are also required to get Kingdom Hearts 3’s secret ending.

As some of these can be really tough to find, the game makes things a bit easier by having Donald, Goofy, or even Sora say that there’s a Hidden Emblem nearby. Whenever you hear that, pull out your Gummiphone and search the area.

The Hidden Emblem will be highlighted in a yellow or red box, with the former noting that you’re at the proper distance and angle to take a picture while the latter means you need to adjust your shot.

For even more guides, make sure to take a look at our Kingdom Hearts 3 wiki. You can also check out plenty of our other Kingdom Hearts related content, like our ranking of the series or the best worlds.