In an interview at GDC 2019, Yasue explained his and his team’s approach to designing what will be deemed Critical Mode, which in previous games was the hardest difficulty option. Rather than go the easy route and simply make the enemies hit harder and have more health, they instead aimed to completely tweak and re-balance the entire game so as to provide a different experience.
Yasue didn’t explicitly comment on new abilities, but he did hint that they would rely heavily on timing and mechanics like blocking, so those who want a challenge from Kingdom Hearts 3 will have to adjust to a more technical/defensive play style and not just keep wildly swinging their Keyblade around. Yasue added that the cooking minigame - the one where Sora uses the ingredients he finds to create meals that grant temporary stat boosts - will be much more integral in overcoming some particular challenges. As stated by Yasue:
Players eager for DLC but not interested in extra challenges can still look forward to some planned Kingdom Hearts 3 story content that’s currently in the works. As it so happens, director Tetsuya Nomura has already confirmed at least one of them will involve the character Xion.
For anyone that hasn’t checked the game out yet, they can read our Kingdom Hearts 3 review. In it, we praise the addictive combat and charming cast of characters.
Kingdom Hearts 3 is available right now on PS4 and Xbox One.
Source: Twinfinite
