Mythology Gag / Kingdom Hearts III

• When the game opens on the stained glass platform, for the few moments that Sora is in his original Kingdom Hearts appearance, Sora's portrait is the same illustrated style as it was in that game.
• Classic Mickey shorts return to the series in the form of Game & Watch style mini-games. Mickey Mouse was one of the handful of licensed characters to be featured in the line.
• Disney Theme Parks
  • The "Hidden Mickeys" seen in Disney parks appear in the game as "lucky emblems" which the player must find throughout the levels.
  • Castle Oblivion's transformation back into the Land of Departure resembles the projection mapping used at Disney park shows, with the image of its true form rising onto Castle Oblivion before it starts physically warping and folding to match.
  • The plaid elements on Sora’s jacket look very similar to the official Disney plaid worn by guest relations staff at Disney parks.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Rex mentions playing a video game with a boss named Bahamut, a recurring summon and boss. He was even planned as a summon for the original Kingdom Hearts.
  • Rex's game, Verum Rex, features the characters Yozora, Magia, and Aegis, a nod to Final Fantasy XV—the Latin Magia and Greek Aegis call to mind XV's on-the-nose Latin Theme Naming, while "Yozora", much like "Noctis Caelum", translates to "night sky".
    • Additionally, an in-game commercial depicts the game as similar to the initial Versus XIII trailers. Yozora combines elements of Noctis and Ravus, Aegis looks like Ignis, and Magia looks like a young Ardyn combined with Prompto. The woman they try to rescue analogue also resembles Stella more than Lunafreya, her retooled version from the final cut of FFXV.
    • The secret ending of the Re:Mind DLC An Oath to Return shows Yozora waking up in the back seat of a car, mirroring a similar shot of Noctis in the Regalia from promotional material for Final Fantasy Versus XIII.
  • The Wheel of Fate Keyblade has a spear transformation called "High Wind", a reference to the Highwind surname frequently used by polearm-using Dragoons throughout Final Fantasy. Its boat imagery also invokes "Highwind" as Riku's preferred name for the raft in the first game and the default Gummi Ship name.
  • Dissidia Final Fantasy figurines appear in the toy store in the Toy Box.
  • A cactuar appears on the pole of the "Hyper Hammer” transformation of the Toy Story keyblade and in one of the toy stores in Galaxy Toys.
  • In the Keyblade Graveyard, Donald takes down Terra-Xehanort with Zettaflare, the same spell used by Airy in her "Evil One" form in the final boss battle of Bravely Default, itself a reference to Bahamut's infamous Megaflare.
  • Remy's cooking provides temporary stat boosts to Sora’s party, who has to find the ingredients by collecting them throughout the worlds, similar to Ignis’ cooking mechanic in Final Fantasy XV.
• Sora, Donald, and Goofy can use Goofy's shield as a makeshift sled in Arendelle, much like they did in the Chain of Memories manga as a Trinity attack.
• Ariel as a Summon is made of seafoam, much like in the original story.
• Ariel's Link is obtained after clearing an underwater combat segment in the Carribean, a clear nod to Atlantica's underwater gameplay in Kingdom Hearts I. It's also a nod to how both the origial The Little Mermaid film and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End both had climaxes involving fighting and defeating the main villain in the middle of a rampaging whirlpool, the latter of which also happens in this game.
• The Blizzard Blade finisher features Sora recreating the iconic shot in Frozen where Elsa stomps and creates a giant snowflake to serve as her castle's floor. From there the snowflake forms Elsa's chandelier, then Sora drops it on the enemy much like Hans did.
• Monsters, Inc.:
  • Boo hasn't stopped repeating "Mike Wazowski!" and the name even gets extended to Donald, since both characters only have one eye.
  • In the Monsters, Inc. world Sora can line up enemies like tenpins and use Mike as a bowling ball. This may be a nod to Mike joking at the end of the film that he was used a dodgeball as a child.
  • Mike sings a line from "Put That Thing Back Where It Came From, or So Help Me!"
  • When Mike calls down the doors so Sora and the rest of the gang can get to Boo's door, the shots of them arriving and being called down to their stations are similar to the establishing shot from the first film when Mike and the rest of the scare assistants are shown prepping the stations for the start of their shift.
  • As in the film, you have to rely on Boo's laughter to power the door vault.
  • When Randall gets sent back to the human world through a door, he gets beaten up with a shovel again by the same hillbilly family that mistook him for an alligator.
  • A few nods to Monsters University are made, such as:
    • The journal entries for Mike and Sulley make note of how they've been friends since college.
    • Before the battle against the Lump of Horror, Sulley tells Mike it's time "reach deep down and let the scary out," as he said the night before the final round of the Scare Games.
• Pirates of the Caribbean:
  • In the Caribbean, Sora briefly sings "A Pirate's Life for Me", the same song from the original Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
  • Jack foils Luxord's plan by giving him a bad breath, causing him to go overboard from the sheer stench. Jack did the same thing to Will in the main plot of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which the game adapts. Lampshaded by Jack himself:
    Jack Sparrow: (smells his breath, then gags briefly) "Yep. Still works."
  • After Davy Jones stabs Will in the chest, Sora, Donald and Goofy immediately leap on Jones to attack him. In the original film, after Jones stabs Will, it's instead Bootstrap Bill ^note Will's father and a prisoner on The Flying Dutchman who does this, but he is Adapted Out in the game, so the job falls to Sora and Co.
• Ratatouille:
  • Remy controls Sora using his hair just like he did with Linguini.
  • As a Bilingual Bonus, the menu of Le Grand Bistrot contains several French phrases, one of which is French for: "Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere," a phrase from Anton Ego's review of Remy's ratatouille.
    • The rest are from Gusteau himself: "You must not let anyone define your limits because of where you come from." "Your only limit is your soul." "Anyone can cook, but only the fearless can be great."
  • Remy still can't speak in language and introduce himself, so the only name the game uses is "Little Chef", just like Linguini did in the film.
  • Crepes Suzette is both an actual dessert and a nod to Talespin.
• Tangled:
  • One of Rapunzel's attacks is her swinging around a tree, a reference to a scene in Tangled where she enjoys her newfound freedom after leaving her tower.
  • Flynn uses a frying pan as his weapon in the Tangled world. It was Rapunzel's signature weapon in the film, but he gets to wield it at the Snuggly Duckling, and its usefulness is exaggerated during the film's climax.
    • One of Flynn's battle quotes, "I have got to get me one of these!", is a reference to his reaction after wielding the frying pan.
• Toy Story:
  • Woody sends the Green Army Men on a recon mission just like in Toy Story.
  • Sora can do a Combination Attack with Woody and Buzz where they ride the rocket from the climax of Toy Story.
  • The Yard Sale sign from Toy Story 2 can be seen behind the garage at Andy's House.
  • The Pizza Planet truck makes an appearance in the parking lot of the Galaxy Toys store.
  • The Little Green Men mistake a UFO toy for the real thing and get taken aboard by a claw, a reference to the first Toy Story where they believed the crane machine was "the Claw" coming to bring them to their home planet.
  • The main Toy Box plot is similar to that of Toy Story 2, where the toys leave Andy's house and travel to a toy store.
  • One of Buzz's attacks is a spin attack with his wings, as in the Toy Story 2 Licensed Game.
  • You can bring an orchestra of toy frogs to life by running on a record player like in Toy Story 2.
  • The world may be named Toy Box after a gameplay mode in the Toy Story 3 Licensed Game, which would also be the inspiration to the Disney Infinity crossover game.
    • Which, in the 3.0 iteration, would let you unlock the Kingdom Key Keyblade, bringing us full circle.
  • Woody's verbal takedown of Young Xehanort is similar to his confrontation with Lotso about his backstory in Toy Story 3.
  • At the end of Toy Box world, Woody tells Sora and co. that he and the other toys aren't quite ready to say "so long", the same line he'd say to Andy at the end of Toy Story 3.
  • Galaxy Toys has a display featuring the Battlesaurs, from Toy Story That Time Forgot.
  • Woody weaponizes his pull string, using it as both a whip and grappling hook, like in the Licensed Game based off the first Toy Story.
• The classic Pixar A113 easter egg is present as a license plate on one of the cars, namely one with a Lucky Emblem on it. It also appears on a box in Remy's kitchen.
• Baymax gives Sora a fist bump, complete with his signature “ba-la-la-la-la” at the end of it.
• Hercules:
  • When Sora watches Hades summon the Titans, a remix of the Underworld battle theme from Kingdom Hearts II plays.
  • How does Sora bring down a statue to take out a wall in Thebes? By attacking the ankle. It was probably a statue of Achilles.
• At the Keyblade Graveyard Luxord fights alongside Larxene and Marluxia. Luxord fights using cards, and Larxene and Marluxia are two of the main antagonists of Chain of Memories, the combat of which is card-based.
  • What's more, the battle theme is "The 13th Struggle", which all three members used in the past—it's the main Organization battle theme in Chain of Memories, while in II Luxord shares it with other Organization Duel Bosses.
  • Going even further, Luxord's lesser Nobodies are the Gamblers and Marluxia and Larxene are two of the four characters shown on the Gamblers' cards in II.
• Yen Sid's parting the Heartless in the Keyblade Graveyard calls to mind him parting the waters in Fantasia, with the same hand movements and everything.
• The Treasure Spheres located in the Gummi Ship areas are based off the Map Sphere from Treasure Planet.
• Lea's Keyblade uses the same sound effects as Bond of Flame, the Keyblade you get after his Heroic Sacrifice in II.
• The themes that play when Sora summons Stitch, Simba, and Ariel are the battle themes of their home worlds (Mkaukau?, Savannah Pride, and An Adventure in Atlantica, respectively)!
• During the minigame in 100 Acre Wood, Tigger uses the whoop-de-dooper loop-de-looper alley-ooper bounce.
• When Sora arrives in the 100 Acre Wood, Pooh happily greets Sora with a “You’re home!”, confusing Sora. It’s likely unintentional given the timing of the film’s release and the game’s English voice acting schedule, but Pooh says the same thing in Christopher Robin when he believes Christopher has returned to the forest, in very similar circumstances; both Sora and Christopher have been away from the Wood for a long time, and have experienced various traumas and hardships that have led to their bonds with Pooh being weakened, and neither can really call the 100 Acre Wood “home” either.
• When Sora proceeds to use the Keyblade to seal the door Randall was shut behind, the music and the way Sora seals the door is like how he sealed Keyholes in the first Kingdom Hearts.
• When fighting alongside Mickey in the Keyblade Graveyard, his low-health and defeat quotes are "I won't give up!" and "It's all over..." respectively. Both of which are nods to the options you had when you were defeated by a boss that Mickey was able to rescue you from in Kingdom Hearts II.
• When Sora and the others combine their powers to defeat the phantom Xehanort in re:Mind, they do a near-exact recreation of the final shot of the DDD intro, with Axel and Xion added to the mix.

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