Pre-Remind KH3 wasn't the greatest thing ever, but Sora was way better than he was in DDD, where he came off as really slow.
I find Dream Drop Distance to be the absolute worst game in terms of Sora's characterization, and I can't fathom why that's the interpretation of his character that they decided to go with. Sora has never been "Xehanort on 5D chess" levels of smart, but he's not stupid, either. But DDD constantly throws in these... I don't know, "jokes" about his intelligence, like not understanding that "Dream Eaters" is obviously not Neku's name
Did they want to make Sora look stupid to justify having him fail the Mark of Mastery exam? To build up Xehanort? To build up Riku? I have no idea, but I can't say that I agree with the decision. If your smart characters only look smart because you forced everyone around them to act stupid, then you're not writing your smart characters well
Also, since I just noticed I can do this...