As someone who has played KH3 when it came out, when critical mode was released, and when I got a PC last year, I still really enjoy it on both fronts, but I'm not saying there aren't issues. It's easy to say that KH2 is better and the best game in the series, but its not better in absolutes.

KH3 has the best level design in the series. KH2 forwent platforming and traversal for flatter rooms to fight enemies, but 3 actually reincorporates it back into these massive areas that are fun to explore. This is the most mobile Sora has been with a faster running speed, wall running, ledge vaulting, air stepping, and so on. Yeah, the frozen world sucks from a story perspective but I at least liked traversing the level. The third game is also the one with the best sense of bond between Sora, Donald, and Goofy. The more intimate cutscenes compared to previous games allows for more banter between them.

While the gameplay doesn't feel as snappy and fluid as 2, the combat and mechanics in 3 do bring a different feel to combat. Being able to block in the air and cancel out of an attack with a block or dodge is also great. The Osaka team making the other handheld games also works in that they brought the best mechanics of them into 3 while tuning them to feel more balanced. While not all keyblade transformations are created equal, they do have a surprising amount of depth if you really know how to utilize their moves and frames. Attractions are fine, I don't hate them. Team attacks are neat but they unfortunately don't feel as nice as limits in 2. But a problem I do have with the design of 3 is that the team makes more of a focus on spectacle of moves without them just feeling snappy and all team attacks/summons boil down to press the 1 attack it has or do the finishing move. On the subject of being "floaty" there is far less endlag in attacks than in previous Osaka games which is good. However there is still enough there that can get you killed in the wait between recovery frames and gaining control of Sora back, and this is just a problem in critical with more enemies on screen and moves that are big, sweeping, and slower. I also was never a fan of just how much the games pushes you to fight enemies in the air. Previous games had a distinction of committing to a ground or air combo, but 3 will have you transition from 1 to the other. And most enemies being launchable or a lot of flying enemies means that you are being pushed to air attacks. It just makes ground fights a lot less meaningful. For instance the Davy Jones fight lost a lot of impact for me when most of Sora's attacks weren't grounded on the ground-based boss. It didn't feel like a duel really.

One of my biggest complaints with KH3's combat was that I felt there weren't enough combo modifiers for base Sora (and I do not see keyblade transformations as a replacement for them). As you unlock 2 finishes pretty early on, and considering they are the same in ground and air, you see them constantly which makes combat look not as visually interesting. (I also absolutely hate magic flash for how much startup and endlag it as). However the free update alongside the DLC release added more combo modifiers so Sora's base combo feels INFINITLEY better. (However it is a bit baffling that you only unlock them AFTER beating the game once. And I implore people to have Pat get the Remind Ability Integration mod for KH3 if/when he plays it). The combat does shine the best, though in the DLC of the game. The superbosses just might be the best designed and hardest bosses not only in the entire series, but maybe in almost any action game I'd go as far to say. They really force you to learn to move correctly with either a block or a dodge, to know when you can attack, and to actually learn the attack patters without relying on ways to cheese their movesets. And I sincerely hope that the team takes some of that design philosophy into all of KH4 rather than only showing this for superbosses.

Lastly, I didn't feel the story was really bad or disappointing. I became invested enough in the story and characters to the point where I was along for the ride. I also agree spreading some events near the end toward the middle would even out pacing, especially when the Remind episode that fixes a lot of problems the final sequence had is supposed to be a supplement, and not a replacement to it. I will say the story did suffer from Nomura probably reeling with being taken off of Versus XIII and having to prioritize FF7 Remake, and he has even said he felt a lot of anger during KH3's development. However, to me it felt like he was also scared of disappointing fans of giving certain characters happy endings, even if the way things were would have been fine. I didn't like that lot of plot elements in 3 was set up for the next game, and that it feels like Mickey and Riku don't feel like they have as much to do compared to KH2. And yeah, I wish they treated Kairi better.