What’s Cookin’?: Kingdom Hearts 3’s Bistro Makes The Case for Keeping Disney in the Mix
The most recent installment of the Kingdom Hearts series has added multiple new systems to its gameplay, including wacky amusement park rides used as weapons of mass destruction, KH themed retro GameBoy style games, and, you guessed it, a cooking game. As a mini game in and of itself, Kingdom Hearts 3’s Bistro is pretty bare bones. Each dish only requires one action to complete, and the actual cooking sequences are short enough to feel fairly unsatisfying. But it captures the core of what these games are all about: happy, silly, crossover weirdness that somehow manages to make sense.
People often say that the Disney worlds in KH aren’t necessary and that the franchise should move away from them going forward, but I always cringe at that thought. To me, the series just wouldn’t be itself without their corny storylines, and weird juxtaposition with meditations on the nature of darkness and hearts. Playing around in the Bistro has helped to clarify why. Now, before you @ me, just hear me out. The evolution of the Bistro’s existence makes sense in the lore of KH. We’ve seen Scrooge McDuck and his enterprising nephews develop their food businesses for over an in-game decade. Scrooge is a capitalist to his core, so of course he seized the opportunity to expand from ice cream into fine dining by exploiting the labor of a rat who’s just trying to break into the business.
The fact that Sora is willing to help with all of Scrooge’s various business ventures without question is perfectly indicative of his trusting and somewhat naive nature. This expands beyond the scope of Scrooge and his boys. Without characters that come from such wholesome backgrounds as Disney films, Sora’s nature as so overly kind and gullible would be much harder to swallow. Even compared to Riku, Sora is almost laughably optimistic. But when he’s put side by side with characters who regularly accomplish monumental tasks through the power of love and are easily bamboozled by villains who practically have ‘EVIL’ written on their chests in neon, everything about his character becomes more believable.
When juxtaposed with the sappy sweetness of Disney, Kingdom Hearts’ own overly earnest messaging about connections between people and the power of friendship is easier to swallow as well. If we can believe that Elsa is able to unfreeze her technically dead sister through the power of true sisterly love, then surely we can believe in Sora’s ability to be a Russian nesting doll of hearts.
The Bistro perfectly exemplifies this symbiotic relationship on a mechanical and narrative level. Mechanically, collecting ingredients for the various dishes across the worlds you visit is just the next iteration on collectibles the series has already been relying on, like the trinity symbols from the first game. They’re not all that interesting, and they’re a bit hard to find if you want everything, but they’re arguably more useful in game than any previous collectibles have been since finished dishes provide boosts to your stats, which can really come in handy if you need a bit of a boost in battles.
But narratively is where the Bistro really hits the core of what KH is. Above all else, Sora is an easily distracted himbo-in-training. His detours to Disney worlds make sense because of that, and help to inform his character. Sora wants to be friends with pretty much everyone he meets, and is always willing to extend a helping hand, even when he probably shouldn’t. While his priority clearly should be tracking down Xehanort, or rebuilding his strength, or literally anything else pertaining to the colossal, world ending events unfolding before him, it is absolutely some Sora ass shit to take time out of his day to let a little rat drive him around the kitchen like a mech.
That’s not a flaw in Kingdom Hearts’ writing. If anything, it demonstrates just how well the writers know this character. Portions of KH3 are somewhat uncomfortable because Sora’s positive veneer finally falls away, even if it’s only briefly. That moment is so powerful and unsettling because this character, as we know him, is one who would drool over a fruit tart prepared by a rodent, and who would go out of his way to fetch ingredients for said rodent, just because he’s a sweet kid.
Originally, the inclusion of this mini-game felt like a weird pull, especially with the return of the Hundred Acre Wood, but after spending more time with it after KH3’s release, it’s become apparent that this is what the franchise is all about: weird, sappy, experimental nonsense that may not necessarily mesh with the overall vibe, but that absolutely matches who Sora is to a tee.
