Good game, but I played it totally wrong which made it excruciatingly difficult for the final boss. I was able to beat the boss before it just barely, however I couldn't beat the final boss no matter what. I couldn't go back and grind either, so I just gave up and watched the ending on Youtube. I'm not proud of myself for doing this, but I had to.
This review contains spoilers
Viagem no tempo em KH! E pokemons!
Fool Reviews Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD
"Wake Me Up, Wake Me Up Inside, Can't Wake Up, Wake Me Up Inside":
I haven't felt this way since I finished the first Kingdom Hearts game, but instead of anger and frustration I'm left with just utter confusion and disinterest.
On an inherent level, Dream Drop Distance is a worse Birth by Sleep in pretty much all aspects. The story is worse, bringing in elements like Time Travel (which we all know rarely ever pans out well in video games), Dreams within Dreams, etc. The gameplay is a major step down, locking abilities and moves behind Dream Eaters, Flow-Motion giving me motion sickness and needing to rely on it too much, boss fights not being all that interesting.
I guess to start, the story of this game just sucks. I already knew about the Time Travel aspect of this game and got a pre-game bias against it just from my dislike of using time travel for narratives. It's a sign that a creator has written themselves into a corner, which Nomura definitely has. Honestly, like with all of the other games post-KH2, I shut my brain off for a majority of the game. I found the premise stupid, but honestly by the end I just didn't care... unfortunately shutting my brain off didn't just apply to the plot.
Gameplay here is very stale for me. Firstly, your regular 3 hit combo (back from good 'ol KH1) sucks dick and barely does damage a majority of the time. You will be forced to rely on Flow-Motion early on as it is pretty much your only way (until you get Balloonra, more on that later) to deal decent damage to the enemies you will face in this game. Flow-Motion actively made me sick for the first day of playing this, I felt incredibly dizzy and motion sick because Flow-Motion has a blur effect that also has light around it. It hurts the eyes. I was able to adjust, but the fact that that was even an issue actively knocks this game down a grade.
Another issue with Flow-Motion is how it has effected level design. Levels are absolutely gargantuan to the point of ridiculousness, and to make it worse there are no NPCs outside of cutscenes for a majority of the game making these massive levels feel completely empty and lifeless. This has been a problem since KH2 honestly, but it is at its most noticeable here because the game actively wants you to fly around these sprawling levels. I got lost in Traverse Town during the opening hours of this game. Traverse Town. They bloated the level design so much I had no idea what area connected with which and it just made me numb.
The worlds overall aren't that interesting, with exception to Symphony of Sorcery, the world based on Fantasia. It is easily the highlight of the game, with sound effects being changed to instruments, and classical music playing the entire time. It was a blast, too bad the boss fights were utter garbage, specifically Chernabog, christ what did they do to him.
Speaking of Chernabog, let's talk about my least favorite part of this game, Diving. You remember that one mini-game in KH2, the one where you go skydiving with Winnie the Pooh? Imagine that replacing the Gummi Ship Levels from 1 for every single world. It got grating really quickly, it doesn't help that you have less versatility than you do with the Gummi Ship missions, but they're just a bore to go through, and they make the Chernabog boss fight one of these... ruining the entire moment.
Back on regular gameplay, if you want to absolutely break this game in half, get the Balloonra spell as soon as possible. It will cut this game's challenge in two as the move easily cleaves through mooks and bosses galore. Of course, that's if you unlock it early and now it's time to get onto a gripe on Dream Eaters.
Dream Eaters actively anger me. They take the customization of BBS and lock it behind raising these little pets and stuff. As someone who didn't like the Chao Garden in the Sonic Adventure Duology, I do not care for this shit at all, but at least the Chao Garden was optional unless you were going for completion. Dream Eaters are required in order to learn new moves and even abilities. Want Curaga? You'll have to grind one of your Dream Eaters to learn the move. Want an ability like Once More? You have to grind your dream eater. Want Magic Haste and Attack Haste? Well, you gotta both grind your Dream Eater and never swap them out because the moment you do you can lose several abilities that you would normally get to keep. It mitigates customization by making it so that you are crippled when you switch to a new Dream Eater. It's like the Class System in Final Fantasy 3, but worse. Because of this, I spent most of the game using Dream Eaters I created on the first level because I didn't want to lose all of the abilities I had unlocked. If the devs wanted me to use all sorts of Dream Eaters, they shouldn't have limited them to this extent.
That's just talking about them as Allies, as Enemies they are just so unfitting to this franchise. They are too similar to Pokemon for me to think "Oh yes, this is Kingdom Hearts enemy." At least the Unversed, while completely unoriginal, felt like they belonged in this franchise.
I'm sorry but when it comes to Dream Drop Distance the entire experience is just one big shut-off for my brain. I don't think I'll ever touch this one again, and I honestly would recommend skipping it and just watching the cutscenes.
This game is a Dream I plan to Drop for good, and hopefully it'll be a long Distance away from that point forward.
Anyways, only Fragmentary Passage and Back Cover are left before I begin my final journey through Kingdom Hearts 3. I'll see you then.
"Wake Me Up, Wake Me Up Inside, Can't Wake Up, Wake Me Up Inside":
I haven't felt this way since I finished the first Kingdom Hearts game, but instead of anger and frustration I'm left with just utter confusion and disinterest.
On an inherent level, Dream Drop Distance is a worse Birth by Sleep in pretty much all aspects. The story is worse, bringing in elements like Time Travel (which we all know rarely ever pans out well in video games), Dreams within Dreams, etc. The gameplay is a major step down, locking abilities and moves behind Dream Eaters, Flow-Motion giving me motion sickness and needing to rely on it too much, boss fights not being all that interesting.
I guess to start, the story of this game just sucks. I already knew about the Time Travel aspect of this game and got a pre-game bias against it just from my dislike of using time travel for narratives. It's a sign that a creator has written themselves into a corner, which Nomura definitely has. Honestly, like with all of the other games post-KH2, I shut my brain off for a majority of the game. I found the premise stupid, but honestly by the end I just didn't care... unfortunately shutting my brain off didn't just apply to the plot.
Gameplay here is very stale for me. Firstly, your regular 3 hit combo (back from good 'ol KH1) sucks dick and barely does damage a majority of the time. You will be forced to rely on Flow-Motion early on as it is pretty much your only way (until you get Balloonra, more on that later) to deal decent damage to the enemies you will face in this game. Flow-Motion actively made me sick for the first day of playing this, I felt incredibly dizzy and motion sick because Flow-Motion has a blur effect that also has light around it. It hurts the eyes. I was able to adjust, but the fact that that was even an issue actively knocks this game down a grade.
Another issue with Flow-Motion is how it has effected level design. Levels are absolutely gargantuan to the point of ridiculousness, and to make it worse there are no NPCs outside of cutscenes for a majority of the game making these massive levels feel completely empty and lifeless. This has been a problem since KH2 honestly, but it is at its most noticeable here because the game actively wants you to fly around these sprawling levels. I got lost in Traverse Town during the opening hours of this game. Traverse Town. They bloated the level design so much I had no idea what area connected with which and it just made me numb.
The worlds overall aren't that interesting, with exception to Symphony of Sorcery, the world based on Fantasia. It is easily the highlight of the game, with sound effects being changed to instruments, and classical music playing the entire time. It was a blast, too bad the boss fights were utter garbage, specifically Chernabog, christ what did they do to him.
Speaking of Chernabog, let's talk about my least favorite part of this game, Diving. You remember that one mini-game in KH2, the one where you go skydiving with Winnie the Pooh? Imagine that replacing the Gummi Ship Levels from 1 for every single world. It got grating really quickly, it doesn't help that you have less versatility than you do with the Gummi Ship missions, but they're just a bore to go through, and they make the Chernabog boss fight one of these... ruining the entire moment.
Back on regular gameplay, if you want to absolutely break this game in half, get the Balloonra spell as soon as possible. It will cut this game's challenge in two as the move easily cleaves through mooks and bosses galore. Of course, that's if you unlock it early and now it's time to get onto a gripe on Dream Eaters.
Dream Eaters actively anger me. They take the customization of BBS and lock it behind raising these little pets and stuff. As someone who didn't like the Chao Garden in the Sonic Adventure Duology, I do not care for this shit at all, but at least the Chao Garden was optional unless you were going for completion. Dream Eaters are required in order to learn new moves and even abilities. Want Curaga? You'll have to grind one of your Dream Eaters to learn the move. Want an ability like Once More? You have to grind your dream eater. Want Magic Haste and Attack Haste? Well, you gotta both grind your Dream Eater and never swap them out because the moment you do you can lose several abilities that you would normally get to keep. It mitigates customization by making it so that you are crippled when you switch to a new Dream Eater. It's like the Class System in Final Fantasy 3, but worse. Because of this, I spent most of the game using Dream Eaters I created on the first level because I didn't want to lose all of the abilities I had unlocked. If the devs wanted me to use all sorts of Dream Eaters, they shouldn't have limited them to this extent.
That's just talking about them as Allies, as Enemies they are just so unfitting to this franchise. They are too similar to Pokemon for me to think "Oh yes, this is Kingdom Hearts enemy." At least the Unversed, while completely unoriginal, felt like they belonged in this franchise.
I'm sorry but when it comes to Dream Drop Distance the entire experience is just one big shut-off for my brain. I don't think I'll ever touch this one again, and I honestly would recommend skipping it and just watching the cutscenes.
This game is a Dream I plan to Drop for good, and hopefully it'll be a long Distance away from that point forward.
Anyways, only Fragmentary Passage and Back Cover are left before I begin my final journey through Kingdom Hearts 3. I'll see you then.
ta bien wapo, se queda algo corto en los mundos pero es divertido y xehanort hace muchas movidas
lo peor es que el postgame es un poco churro y el jefe oculto es...meh
y muy indignado con que al final sora y riku no se diesen ni un mísero besito
lo peor es que el postgame es un poco churro y el jefe oculto es...meh
y muy indignado con que al final sora y riku no se diesen ni un mísero besito
Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance does a lot to improve on the flaws of Birth By Sleep, but it also takes steps backwards on other areas, resulting in a game that is on par with Birth By Sleep, albeit for different reasons. Let’s get started!
On the positive side of things, the gameplay has seen some improvements. The combat still sticks to the command deck formula of its predecessor, but with improvements.The attacks this time around are faster and more fluid and keyblade attacks are made more useful now. The balancing is also much better done here, although it immediately vanishes once the balloon spell enters the mix, so it is still not quite there yet. Separate command levelling and synthesis for abilities are also gone, which are good changes in my eyes. Flowmotion is an excellent addition, both in combat and outside of it for exploration. It’s basically superpowered parkour and i love parkour so yea. The boss fights are a massive improvement over birth by sleep, with almost all of them being great, except for 2-3 bosses at the end being extremely cheap and terribly designed. It still has flaws though. “Enemies stunlocking you “is at its worst in this game and it can become frustrating in encounters with multiple enemies at once who can combo you to death simply by continuous stunlock. Even after all that, the combat is a big step-up from Birth By Sleep and it is more fun this time around, but it still doesn’t reach kh2 levels. The presentation is pretty great. If birth by sleep looked like a portable kh1, then dream drop distance looks like a portable kh2, with the character models, animations, graphics and texture quality being on-par with that game. The cutscenes are great looking too, with png faces being almost non-existent. The world design has seen tremendous improvement as well. Not only is the world selection far more interesting, but the worlds themselves are also some of the best designed in the series. They’re bigger and more packed with platforming and treasures to take full advantage of flowmotion and it is extremely fun to explore them and get rewarded for it. My only gripe is that the selection is short, but is fairly excusable because of the sheer size of these worlds. I found the music to be more memorable as well. The world themes are all great and the battle themes are bangers, with boss themes being exceptional. Highlights include Calling Kingdom Mix, Twister Kingdom Mix, L’Impeto Oscuro, Access The Grid, Night On Bald Mountain and the more jazzy remix of Traverse Town. Side content is also there, but not to the degree of its predecessors. There is only one single optional boss this time, which is tough as shit, but well designed this time around. You can also revisit previously defeated story bosses, which are now much tougher, defeat them again for a special powerful keyblade. Each world has different portals, where you can either partake in battle challenges to be rewarded with different items or call on the help of dream eaters (more on that later) as reinforcement. One world…ok fine it’s Tron Legacy’s world has a really fun Light Cycle minigame. The main attractions are definitely the Flick Rush minigame and Dive mechanic, which i’ll explain more below.
Now for the mixed bags and negatives, which oh boy. The story is one of the weaker ones in the series. This is the point where kingdom hearts got complex for the sake of complexity and not for an actually deep and engaging plot. It delves into overcomplicated with how many terms, retcons and concepts it introduces, all the while it does so with a terrible pacing, multiple plotholes and a villain that has all the potential to be good, but quickly gets shelved or its spotlight stolen by far better villains of the past that suddenly return here. Sora is at his worst here writing wise, acting far dumber than he ever has with seemingly no good excuses as to why. It removes him of any depth he previously had. This is in direct contrast to Riku, who is at his best writing wise, being given even more depth and seemingly turning into the true protag of the game, instead of Sora. Dialogue and voice acting is also fairly hit and miss. If it’s not compelling or funny, it is cringeworthy or unintentionally comedic.
Overall, just not a good story.
The three new gameplay mechanics that this game introduces are dream eaters, dive mode and drop mechanic. The dream eaters are basically chao garden, with abilities and commands being locked behind caring for them and getting link points by playing with them or having them in your party. The execution is extremely hit and miss. Not only are they not good as party members, but the actual chao garden portion is either boring as fuck or just meh. It is a better method over the command board of birth by sleep, but it’s now even more mandatory which can be a dealbreaker for those who don’t like pet simulators. I personally didn’t mind these, so i was fine, but it’s a warning. They are also used for the flick rush minigame, which is like the chao tournaments WTF IS WITH THESE SONIC ADVENTURE INFLUENCES????? Anyways, these tournaments consist of essentially rechain of memories-like card games with dream eaters, where you win by eliminating the other team. Thanks to how reliant on RNG it is, it can be either boring or frustrating thanks to the AI of the opponents. Dive mode replaces gummi ships and it now revolves around characters “diving” into worlds and completing certain objectives to be granted access to that world and it is…eh? It’s fairly mindless and not even a challenge (seriously i got A ranks on my first go in pretty much all of them). Not sure why they bothered, since Birth By Sleep did perfectly well not having any world accessing minigames at all. And then the drop mechanic…who the hell thought of this???? Basically, there is a timer between Sora and Riku that automatically puts them to sleep, forcing you to switch to the other characters and stopping progression of that character dead on its tracks. Wh…huh…uhh…???????? WHAT IS THIS SHIT?!?! THIS IS A GLORIFIED TIMER THAT MAKES YOU RUSH YOUR SHIT INSTEAD OF TAKING YOUR TIME! This aspect can be completely nullified if you purchase potions that extend the gauge, which are dirt cheap. In that case, WTF WAS EVEN THE POINT WHEN YOU CAN JUST IGNORE IT ALL TOGETHER FOR A COUPLE OF MUNNY?! Seriously, this is dumb! Character switching plays a big role in the game, but there is also no point in them, since outside of different usage of dream eater links (which i never used in the first place), Sora and Riku play almost the exact same. It just serves to pad out the game and make the pacing worse at this point.
Overall, despite the complaints, i still had fun with the game. If it weren’t for the far more fun combat, great boss design, memorable music and amazing world exploration, this game would have been significantly lower in terms of rating, thanks due to the many dumb design choices (drop and dive mechanics), the bad story and writing, dream eater chao garden fuckery, poor pacing and padding. This game really is a dream and a nightmare combined at once.
On the positive side of things, the gameplay has seen some improvements. The combat still sticks to the command deck formula of its predecessor, but with improvements.The attacks this time around are faster and more fluid and keyblade attacks are made more useful now. The balancing is also much better done here, although it immediately vanishes once the balloon spell enters the mix, so it is still not quite there yet. Separate command levelling and synthesis for abilities are also gone, which are good changes in my eyes. Flowmotion is an excellent addition, both in combat and outside of it for exploration. It’s basically superpowered parkour and i love parkour so yea. The boss fights are a massive improvement over birth by sleep, with almost all of them being great, except for 2-3 bosses at the end being extremely cheap and terribly designed. It still has flaws though. “Enemies stunlocking you “is at its worst in this game and it can become frustrating in encounters with multiple enemies at once who can combo you to death simply by continuous stunlock. Even after all that, the combat is a big step-up from Birth By Sleep and it is more fun this time around, but it still doesn’t reach kh2 levels. The presentation is pretty great. If birth by sleep looked like a portable kh1, then dream drop distance looks like a portable kh2, with the character models, animations, graphics and texture quality being on-par with that game. The cutscenes are great looking too, with png faces being almost non-existent. The world design has seen tremendous improvement as well. Not only is the world selection far more interesting, but the worlds themselves are also some of the best designed in the series. They’re bigger and more packed with platforming and treasures to take full advantage of flowmotion and it is extremely fun to explore them and get rewarded for it. My only gripe is that the selection is short, but is fairly excusable because of the sheer size of these worlds. I found the music to be more memorable as well. The world themes are all great and the battle themes are bangers, with boss themes being exceptional. Highlights include Calling Kingdom Mix, Twister Kingdom Mix, L’Impeto Oscuro, Access The Grid, Night On Bald Mountain and the more jazzy remix of Traverse Town. Side content is also there, but not to the degree of its predecessors. There is only one single optional boss this time, which is tough as shit, but well designed this time around. You can also revisit previously defeated story bosses, which are now much tougher, defeat them again for a special powerful keyblade. Each world has different portals, where you can either partake in battle challenges to be rewarded with different items or call on the help of dream eaters (more on that later) as reinforcement. One world…ok fine it’s Tron Legacy’s world has a really fun Light Cycle minigame. The main attractions are definitely the Flick Rush minigame and Dive mechanic, which i’ll explain more below.
Now for the mixed bags and negatives, which oh boy. The story is one of the weaker ones in the series. This is the point where kingdom hearts got complex for the sake of complexity and not for an actually deep and engaging plot. It delves into overcomplicated with how many terms, retcons and concepts it introduces, all the while it does so with a terrible pacing, multiple plotholes and a villain that has all the potential to be good, but quickly gets shelved or its spotlight stolen by far better villains of the past that suddenly return here. Sora is at his worst here writing wise, acting far dumber than he ever has with seemingly no good excuses as to why. It removes him of any depth he previously had. This is in direct contrast to Riku, who is at his best writing wise, being given even more depth and seemingly turning into the true protag of the game, instead of Sora. Dialogue and voice acting is also fairly hit and miss. If it’s not compelling or funny, it is cringeworthy or unintentionally comedic.
Overall, just not a good story.
The three new gameplay mechanics that this game introduces are dream eaters, dive mode and drop mechanic. The dream eaters are basically chao garden, with abilities and commands being locked behind caring for them and getting link points by playing with them or having them in your party. The execution is extremely hit and miss. Not only are they not good as party members, but the actual chao garden portion is either boring as fuck or just meh. It is a better method over the command board of birth by sleep, but it’s now even more mandatory which can be a dealbreaker for those who don’t like pet simulators. I personally didn’t mind these, so i was fine, but it’s a warning. They are also used for the flick rush minigame, which is like the chao tournaments WTF IS WITH THESE SONIC ADVENTURE INFLUENCES????? Anyways, these tournaments consist of essentially rechain of memories-like card games with dream eaters, where you win by eliminating the other team. Thanks to how reliant on RNG it is, it can be either boring or frustrating thanks to the AI of the opponents. Dive mode replaces gummi ships and it now revolves around characters “diving” into worlds and completing certain objectives to be granted access to that world and it is…eh? It’s fairly mindless and not even a challenge (seriously i got A ranks on my first go in pretty much all of them). Not sure why they bothered, since Birth By Sleep did perfectly well not having any world accessing minigames at all. And then the drop mechanic…who the hell thought of this???? Basically, there is a timer between Sora and Riku that automatically puts them to sleep, forcing you to switch to the other characters and stopping progression of that character dead on its tracks. Wh…huh…uhh…???????? WHAT IS THIS SHIT?!?! THIS IS A GLORIFIED TIMER THAT MAKES YOU RUSH YOUR SHIT INSTEAD OF TAKING YOUR TIME! This aspect can be completely nullified if you purchase potions that extend the gauge, which are dirt cheap. In that case, WTF WAS EVEN THE POINT WHEN YOU CAN JUST IGNORE IT ALL TOGETHER FOR A COUPLE OF MUNNY?! Seriously, this is dumb! Character switching plays a big role in the game, but there is also no point in them, since outside of different usage of dream eater links (which i never used in the first place), Sora and Riku play almost the exact same. It just serves to pad out the game and make the pacing worse at this point.
Overall, despite the complaints, i still had fun with the game. If it weren’t for the far more fun combat, great boss design, memorable music and amazing world exploration, this game would have been significantly lower in terms of rating, thanks due to the many dumb design choices (drop and dive mechanics), the bad story and writing, dream eater chao garden fuckery, poor pacing and padding. This game really is a dream and a nightmare combined at once.
Dream Drop Distance, 3 D's, 3D, wait a second... wait HD what the fuck?
Some neat new worlds and Flowmotion really speeds up the gameplay at times. Was not as much of a fan of the summons but it was a nice entry.
this game fucking sucks, only good thing about the game is the movement that is botched and limited because of how small the locations are
tetsuya nomura consume todas las drogas conocidas y alguna desconocida y crea un juego
Finished on the 3DS. I really liked the gameplay, the story was also really sweet. All you really have to know is spam Balloon commands and you win the game, hope that helps.
Not the worst in the series but also nowhere near the best. Movement was fun, enjoyed boosting up walls and dashing about the place. Absolutely nonsensical plot as ever, enjoyable in that very special Kingdom Hearts way. Not a big fan of the dream eaters either, too many Chao garden/ Nintendogs elements which is not my thing.
The story is awful and the gameplay is only slightly better than BBS. The dream eater mechanics are pretty lame too. Would have much preferred to partner up with characters from each world.
This review contains spoilers
Going into this game I fully expected to hate it considering how hated this game is within the circles I run in, but honestly I enjoyed thKingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance a lot. I can kind of see why people dislike this game but for me personally I just vibed with it a lot more than I expected too and I'd consider it as good, if not slightly a bit better than Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep.
To give a bit of context Dream Drop Distance, sometimes known as Kingdom Hearts 3D due to its title and also the fact that it was released originally on the 3ds, Follows the events of Kingdom Hearts 2 and ReCoded that sees Sora and Riku taking their Mark of Mastery exam to become keyblade masters. In order to achieve this they must travel to worlds that are stuck sleeping in their memories from before they were swallowed by the darkness and open their keyholes in order to restore the worlds to what they once were. Personally I don't have a problem with this set up and I think the execution and the direction the story goes in is pretty interesting, but before I get into that I do want to talk about how this game is to actually play first.
So the core gameplay of Dream Drop Distance is incredibly similar to Birth By Sleep's systems at first with several new additions to mix things up a bit. The game still has you use the command deck to cycle through abilities and spells like in Birth By Sleep but unlock new abilities this time around via the Dream Eaters, which function as the main type of enemy you'll face, your party members, and discount pokemon. You get the abilities by creating a link with the dream eaters in your party that give you points which you spend on their own unlock tree that gives different commands, abilities, and buffs in order to help Sora and Riku. A surprise bonus with this system this time around is that all dream eaters and ability unlocks are shared between Sora and Riku. This was a welcome change from how Birth By Sleep handled abilities where you would have to spend a good chunk of time regrinding for the same necessary abilities on each character such as once more or leaf bracer. That being said, I'm not the biggest fan of the method for unlocking these abilities this time around.
While I do like the Dream Eaters unlock system in theory it overall just feels a lot less fun than mixing commands to me personally. It is most likely because it takes a lot longer to grind out the ability points you need for each Dream Eater compared to grinding for command levels in Birth By Sleep, but it also makes getting new commands a bit less fun because instead of getting buffs and abilities such as once more as attachments to commands you have to unlock them separately which adds to the amount of grinding you need to do; and trust me when I say that late game you will need Leaf bracer, once more, and second chance or some bosses will just oblitarate you. It's not the worst thing in the world but it did arbitrarily add to the playtime it felt like to me personally. This feeling is amplified a bit by the fact that a lot of the Dream Eaters with the necessary abilities are locked behind finding hard to find dream pieces in order to form the Dream Eater, another thing you have to grind for just to get some abilities to help you play the game without dying.
One new addition that I thought was the best addition to the combat they've made since Kingdom hearts 2 is flowmotion. When it comes to movement in games I love going fast and being able to do cool things while moving fast, and flowmotion is just that but with an added combat flair to it. Flowmotion is a system where by pressing the square while next to certain objects you enter a sped up state and by pressing square again you can launch yourself around to other objects and just keep doing this in order to traverse the landscape as quick as possible. This ability can also be used for combat; if you press X instead of square after entering flowmotion you'll do a flowmotion attack on the nearest enemy. It's also possible to do flowmotion attacks on larger enemies by running up to them and trying to activate flowmotion. I really liked this ability because it just lets you bounce around super quickly when you need to get places as well as adding more options and choices of attack.
The game also returns the on rails shooter style of gameplay that was present in the gummi ship sections in 1 and 2, sort of, via the dive minigame. Every time you enter a world for the first time you have to dive into it, which is usually just Sora or Riku falling towards the world with some kind of objective to complete like beat the boss or collect 500 star points. They're not amazing but I had a surprising amount of fun with them, especially considering how little I care for the gummi ship sections of the mainline games.
As much as I enjoy this game it does have a bit of a weird relationship with bosses though I will say. It seems to frontload all of its pretty bad to not great bosses right up front but once you get out of the first three worlds after Traverse Town I think the boss quality picks up tremendously. I think the final gauntlet of Riku's story with the multitude of bosses he fights are legitimately incredibly fun and Sora's final boss is pretty great also I felt. They even brought back Churnabog from Kingdom Hearts 1 but made his fight one of my favorite in the game instead of just outright one of the worst bossfights I've ever played like in Kingdom Hearts 1. Neither reach the level of Kingdom Hearts 2 or BBS's final boss fights but I enjoyed them immensely either way.
The one gameplay thing in this game that I really can't say anything positive about though is the drop meter. The drop meter is essentially a timer that forces you to swap to whichever character you are not playing as when the meter hits zero. This is such an odd system to have for this game that really does not need to be there. It just forces you to stop what you're doing in the middle of a fight or traversal segment without really giving you a good reason as to why you need to switch other than that they want you to regularly switch between Sora and Riku. Which could have been achieved in a lot better feeling of a way if they just forced you to switch after each world or after key story points; something that already happens at key points of the story. That being said as annoying of a system as this is it is made a bit more manageable by the fact that there are extremely cheap items you can buy that just negate the drop meter entirely because it just refills it and changes the intensity of it back to normal so you don't lose the meter at a faster rate. I'm not sure why this system is in the game because it adds nothing to it, but at the same time you quickly learn how to work around it so its far from the worst thing this game could have done.
Now it's time to talk about the story, I will be spoiling a lot going forward so this is the warning if you have interest in playing the game but don't want to know what's going on story wise.
This game's plot gets a lot of flack for being stupid and too confusing but honestly I kind of found it pretty straight forward outside of one aspect which was just me forgetting a detail of Kingdom Hearts 1 since its been two years since I played it; there are definitely dumb moments in the story though I won't deny that. That being said, I do feel the dumb stuff was not as bad as it was made out to be before I played the game. The most prominent example of something dumb for me was Xigbar's "I'm already half Xehanort" line which while it did make me roll my eyes I kind of got what it was going for? It felt like an in character way for Xigbar to quickly say "Xehanort's heart fragment is already inside of me but its not the controlling force" to Sora who has shown up to this point to not be the brightest. It's a dumb line regardless but I do think there's some sense to it following the series's logic and how these characters act.
Though most likely the main reason people complain about this game's story is most likely the time travel aspect, which frankly I do not mind because I really don't have as much of a problem with time travel media as other people do. Especially in this case since it seems like there's pretty clear cut rules on how time travel is handled in universe so it's not just an end all be all to problems like it could be used to be. Them establishing that time travel exists, people can't just travel back in time to whenever they want, and that even if you mess with things it can't just change fate all being set up in one scene was a lot of information to drop within a ten minute timeframe but I do appreciate it doing that because it cleanly answers a lot of the questions raised by the introduction of time travel.
I also really enjoyed Riku being the more prominent main character of the game. Not only does he get a lot of time to shine throughout the story but he has some of the best boss fights, and he gets to be the one to finish the story and fight the final boss as well as being recognized as a master of the keyblade. This last part is something that I find really cool because it sort of completely's Riku's arc from the first game to now where he fell to darkness and lost his chance to be the keyblade's chosen weidler because of it, and then after being pulled out of the darkness and struggling with it continuously he managed to pull himself out of it and free himself entirely before coming into his own destiny as a master of the keyblade. It's such a great end to this character arc for Riku and I can't wait to see what he does going forward as a master of the keyblade.
I also was actually pretty okay with how they brought back a lot of the organization members into this. While I feel like the explanation is a bit odd, the idea that once both the nobody and the heartless that were spawned from the same body die they return to form themselves again does work within the series's own internal logic and hey it gave us more Axel/Lea so I'm cool with it. It does make me wonder which other members of the organization are back and whether we'll see them as enemies or foes in Kingdom hearts 3. We already know Saix/Isa is back as well as Xigbar/Briar, but I'm interested to see who came back fully and what characters are important to the plot going forward.
Outside of the actual main plot I have to say that despite not being a big disney guy I feel like the world selection in this game was kinda great honestly. I'm not sure why but I just heavily vibed with them using The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tron legacy, Pinnochio, The Three Musketeers, and Fantasia as their worlds this time around. Especially since the Dream Eaters played a roll in a number of the stories involving a good chunk of the worlds. Judge Frollo having a giant Dream Eater Dragon that he used to set fire to Paris was a really fun way to play on what I assume is something Frollo does in the movie, Fantasia being a chase through different shorts to get pages and then stop a Dream Eater from controlling Mickey, a giant T-Rex Dream Eater chasing the Princess's carriage in the Musketeers world, they all had really fun ways of integrating the Dream Eaters into the plot of each world instead of just directly making them repeats of the movie entirely like is something that happens in more than a few Kingdom Hearts worlds throughout the series. Also as someone who watched Fantasia for the first time only a day before getting to it in this game I have to say that was a lot of fun to get to play through the worlds of it in some sense.
As always with this series this game has some insanely good music. The Dread of Night, L'Emineza Oscura, the fantasia world music, The Eye of Darkness, and a few others are all great songs. As always, give the soundtrack a listen even if you don't play the game because it's great.
Overall Dream Drop Distance feels like a very underrated game to me, its far from perfect but I had a great time with it. The story has its dumb moments sure but I feel like overall the main idea/set up is cool; and at this point in Kingdom Hearts as a series dumb moments are kind of too be expected to some degree. Really good game that is definitely slept on too much in my opinion, definitely one to play instead of skipping if you're going through the series in my opinion.
9/10
To give a bit of context Dream Drop Distance, sometimes known as Kingdom Hearts 3D due to its title and also the fact that it was released originally on the 3ds, Follows the events of Kingdom Hearts 2 and ReCoded that sees Sora and Riku taking their Mark of Mastery exam to become keyblade masters. In order to achieve this they must travel to worlds that are stuck sleeping in their memories from before they were swallowed by the darkness and open their keyholes in order to restore the worlds to what they once were. Personally I don't have a problem with this set up and I think the execution and the direction the story goes in is pretty interesting, but before I get into that I do want to talk about how this game is to actually play first.
So the core gameplay of Dream Drop Distance is incredibly similar to Birth By Sleep's systems at first with several new additions to mix things up a bit. The game still has you use the command deck to cycle through abilities and spells like in Birth By Sleep but unlock new abilities this time around via the Dream Eaters, which function as the main type of enemy you'll face, your party members, and discount pokemon. You get the abilities by creating a link with the dream eaters in your party that give you points which you spend on their own unlock tree that gives different commands, abilities, and buffs in order to help Sora and Riku. A surprise bonus with this system this time around is that all dream eaters and ability unlocks are shared between Sora and Riku. This was a welcome change from how Birth By Sleep handled abilities where you would have to spend a good chunk of time regrinding for the same necessary abilities on each character such as once more or leaf bracer. That being said, I'm not the biggest fan of the method for unlocking these abilities this time around.
While I do like the Dream Eaters unlock system in theory it overall just feels a lot less fun than mixing commands to me personally. It is most likely because it takes a lot longer to grind out the ability points you need for each Dream Eater compared to grinding for command levels in Birth By Sleep, but it also makes getting new commands a bit less fun because instead of getting buffs and abilities such as once more as attachments to commands you have to unlock them separately which adds to the amount of grinding you need to do; and trust me when I say that late game you will need Leaf bracer, once more, and second chance or some bosses will just oblitarate you. It's not the worst thing in the world but it did arbitrarily add to the playtime it felt like to me personally. This feeling is amplified a bit by the fact that a lot of the Dream Eaters with the necessary abilities are locked behind finding hard to find dream pieces in order to form the Dream Eater, another thing you have to grind for just to get some abilities to help you play the game without dying.
One new addition that I thought was the best addition to the combat they've made since Kingdom hearts 2 is flowmotion. When it comes to movement in games I love going fast and being able to do cool things while moving fast, and flowmotion is just that but with an added combat flair to it. Flowmotion is a system where by pressing the square while next to certain objects you enter a sped up state and by pressing square again you can launch yourself around to other objects and just keep doing this in order to traverse the landscape as quick as possible. This ability can also be used for combat; if you press X instead of square after entering flowmotion you'll do a flowmotion attack on the nearest enemy. It's also possible to do flowmotion attacks on larger enemies by running up to them and trying to activate flowmotion. I really liked this ability because it just lets you bounce around super quickly when you need to get places as well as adding more options and choices of attack.
The game also returns the on rails shooter style of gameplay that was present in the gummi ship sections in 1 and 2, sort of, via the dive minigame. Every time you enter a world for the first time you have to dive into it, which is usually just Sora or Riku falling towards the world with some kind of objective to complete like beat the boss or collect 500 star points. They're not amazing but I had a surprising amount of fun with them, especially considering how little I care for the gummi ship sections of the mainline games.
As much as I enjoy this game it does have a bit of a weird relationship with bosses though I will say. It seems to frontload all of its pretty bad to not great bosses right up front but once you get out of the first three worlds after Traverse Town I think the boss quality picks up tremendously. I think the final gauntlet of Riku's story with the multitude of bosses he fights are legitimately incredibly fun and Sora's final boss is pretty great also I felt. They even brought back Churnabog from Kingdom Hearts 1 but made his fight one of my favorite in the game instead of just outright one of the worst bossfights I've ever played like in Kingdom Hearts 1. Neither reach the level of Kingdom Hearts 2 or BBS's final boss fights but I enjoyed them immensely either way.
The one gameplay thing in this game that I really can't say anything positive about though is the drop meter. The drop meter is essentially a timer that forces you to swap to whichever character you are not playing as when the meter hits zero. This is such an odd system to have for this game that really does not need to be there. It just forces you to stop what you're doing in the middle of a fight or traversal segment without really giving you a good reason as to why you need to switch other than that they want you to regularly switch between Sora and Riku. Which could have been achieved in a lot better feeling of a way if they just forced you to switch after each world or after key story points; something that already happens at key points of the story. That being said as annoying of a system as this is it is made a bit more manageable by the fact that there are extremely cheap items you can buy that just negate the drop meter entirely because it just refills it and changes the intensity of it back to normal so you don't lose the meter at a faster rate. I'm not sure why this system is in the game because it adds nothing to it, but at the same time you quickly learn how to work around it so its far from the worst thing this game could have done.
Now it's time to talk about the story, I will be spoiling a lot going forward so this is the warning if you have interest in playing the game but don't want to know what's going on story wise.
This game's plot gets a lot of flack for being stupid and too confusing but honestly I kind of found it pretty straight forward outside of one aspect which was just me forgetting a detail of Kingdom Hearts 1 since its been two years since I played it; there are definitely dumb moments in the story though I won't deny that. That being said, I do feel the dumb stuff was not as bad as it was made out to be before I played the game. The most prominent example of something dumb for me was Xigbar's "I'm already half Xehanort" line which while it did make me roll my eyes I kind of got what it was going for? It felt like an in character way for Xigbar to quickly say "Xehanort's heart fragment is already inside of me but its not the controlling force" to Sora who has shown up to this point to not be the brightest. It's a dumb line regardless but I do think there's some sense to it following the series's logic and how these characters act.
Though most likely the main reason people complain about this game's story is most likely the time travel aspect, which frankly I do not mind because I really don't have as much of a problem with time travel media as other people do. Especially in this case since it seems like there's pretty clear cut rules on how time travel is handled in universe so it's not just an end all be all to problems like it could be used to be. Them establishing that time travel exists, people can't just travel back in time to whenever they want, and that even if you mess with things it can't just change fate all being set up in one scene was a lot of information to drop within a ten minute timeframe but I do appreciate it doing that because it cleanly answers a lot of the questions raised by the introduction of time travel.
I also really enjoyed Riku being the more prominent main character of the game. Not only does he get a lot of time to shine throughout the story but he has some of the best boss fights, and he gets to be the one to finish the story and fight the final boss as well as being recognized as a master of the keyblade. This last part is something that I find really cool because it sort of completely's Riku's arc from the first game to now where he fell to darkness and lost his chance to be the keyblade's chosen weidler because of it, and then after being pulled out of the darkness and struggling with it continuously he managed to pull himself out of it and free himself entirely before coming into his own destiny as a master of the keyblade. It's such a great end to this character arc for Riku and I can't wait to see what he does going forward as a master of the keyblade.
I also was actually pretty okay with how they brought back a lot of the organization members into this. While I feel like the explanation is a bit odd, the idea that once both the nobody and the heartless that were spawned from the same body die they return to form themselves again does work within the series's own internal logic and hey it gave us more Axel/Lea so I'm cool with it. It does make me wonder which other members of the organization are back and whether we'll see them as enemies or foes in Kingdom hearts 3. We already know Saix/Isa is back as well as Xigbar/Briar, but I'm interested to see who came back fully and what characters are important to the plot going forward.
Outside of the actual main plot I have to say that despite not being a big disney guy I feel like the world selection in this game was kinda great honestly. I'm not sure why but I just heavily vibed with them using The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tron legacy, Pinnochio, The Three Musketeers, and Fantasia as their worlds this time around. Especially since the Dream Eaters played a roll in a number of the stories involving a good chunk of the worlds. Judge Frollo having a giant Dream Eater Dragon that he used to set fire to Paris was a really fun way to play on what I assume is something Frollo does in the movie, Fantasia being a chase through different shorts to get pages and then stop a Dream Eater from controlling Mickey, a giant T-Rex Dream Eater chasing the Princess's carriage in the Musketeers world, they all had really fun ways of integrating the Dream Eaters into the plot of each world instead of just directly making them repeats of the movie entirely like is something that happens in more than a few Kingdom Hearts worlds throughout the series. Also as someone who watched Fantasia for the first time only a day before getting to it in this game I have to say that was a lot of fun to get to play through the worlds of it in some sense.
As always with this series this game has some insanely good music. The Dread of Night, L'Emineza Oscura, the fantasia world music, The Eye of Darkness, and a few others are all great songs. As always, give the soundtrack a listen even if you don't play the game because it's great.
Overall Dream Drop Distance feels like a very underrated game to me, its far from perfect but I had a great time with it. The story has its dumb moments sure but I feel like overall the main idea/set up is cool; and at this point in Kingdom Hearts as a series dumb moments are kind of too be expected to some degree. Really good game that is definitely slept on too much in my opinion, definitely one to play instead of skipping if you're going through the series in my opinion.
9/10
KEIKAKU
kkkk podre
Como con BBS, los comandos y el gameplay son geniales, en especial el Drop que añadieron hace sentir más adrenalina y ayuda en los combates. La historia es muy.. meh, complicaron demasiados las cosas aquí.
Los Dream Eaters son divertidos de criar y un dolor de cabeza a la vez para conseguir ciertas cosas para estos.
Juego pasable.
Los Dream Eaters son divertidos de criar y un dolor de cabeza a la vez para conseguir ciertas cosas para estos.
Juego pasable.
Este juego me sorprendió bastante, pensé que iba a ser un Chain of Memory 2.0, pero logro innovar en sus mecánica, y aunque acá empiecen a flashear, tiene un gran final para uno de los mejores personajes de la saga.
this might be an unpopular opinion, but i think this one is pretty good. am i biased because there are TWEWY characters in it? maybe.
Everyone who hates this game is a coward
This game was dumb fun, the boss scaling was kinda bad (what non-numbered game in this series isn’t) but the story was pretty enjoyable
Played on PS5, completed proud mode/secret ending
Kingdom Hearts 3D brought over the stuff I liked about Birth by Sleep and added the bubble pets (They’re called Spirits but they’re my bubble pets). The bubble pets replaced the command board and also acted as AI party members.
I absolutely loved the bubble pets and the little mini games as well (pinball being my favorite). However I have one big gripe, unless you put a lot of effort into the games, the progress you make with the bubble pets is a snail’s pace. If the mini games as well as food/petting doesn’t seem ideal/fun for someone, raising the level and link points necessary for unlocking skills makes the game harder... significantly so. I loved this part of the game but if someone doesn’t have the patience for it... well... good luck with that.
Drops were generally fine and I enjoy swapping between Sora and Riku. I WISH DROP METER WAS DISABLED DURING BOSS FIGHTS THOUGH. I loved their different play styles.
Flowmotion and all platform information was fun af
The story is adds a huge extra layer of confusion along with some answered questions... mostly confusion. Going through the (awkward) worlds and grinding out the story was really fun. However, two out of the three boss at the end were NOT FUN. I ended up getting past them after a few tries but KH has this problem with making bosses hard to be hard. The optimal way would be to make a boss hard AND rewarding. These are end game bosses so I guess winning the video games should be award enough but it sure didn’t feel like it lmaoooo
I overall truly enjoyed 3D a lot. It really brought me a lot of joy despite the few frustrations.
I’ve been stream all the KH game in order this entire year (haven’t played them) and I can’t freaking believe I’m on the cusp of KH3 O///O
Kingdom Hearts 3D brought over the stuff I liked about Birth by Sleep and added the bubble pets (They’re called Spirits but they’re my bubble pets). The bubble pets replaced the command board and also acted as AI party members.
I absolutely loved the bubble pets and the little mini games as well (pinball being my favorite). However I have one big gripe, unless you put a lot of effort into the games, the progress you make with the bubble pets is a snail’s pace. If the mini games as well as food/petting doesn’t seem ideal/fun for someone, raising the level and link points necessary for unlocking skills makes the game harder... significantly so. I loved this part of the game but if someone doesn’t have the patience for it... well... good luck with that.
Drops were generally fine and I enjoy swapping between Sora and Riku. I WISH DROP METER WAS DISABLED DURING BOSS FIGHTS THOUGH. I loved their different play styles.
Flowmotion and all platform information was fun af
The story is adds a huge extra layer of confusion along with some answered questions... mostly confusion. Going through the (awkward) worlds and grinding out the story was really fun. However, two out of the three boss at the end were NOT FUN. I ended up getting past them after a few tries but KH has this problem with making bosses hard to be hard. The optimal way would be to make a boss hard AND rewarding. These are end game bosses so I guess winning the video games should be award enough but it sure didn’t feel like it lmaoooo
I overall truly enjoyed 3D a lot. It really brought me a lot of joy despite the few frustrations.
I’ve been stream all the KH game in order this entire year (haven’t played them) and I can’t freaking believe I’m on the cusp of KH3 O///O
Dream Drop Distance follows the suit of the gimmicky portable Kingdom Hearts games that use a command deck and some things are alright but it does way too much, adds too much, a drop mechanic that sounds good on paper but sort of ruined the pacing of the overall game.
As with every KH game, the story and music is decent here. The worlds here are more akin to classic Disney media like The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Fantasia which was my favorite world here due to the story and music and them bring The World Ends With You characters in the first world which made the slow start much bearable. The gameplay albeit a bit simplified due to the original release of this being for a portable is still standard KH at the end of the day. Flowmotion is probably the best addition to the series this game provides but it does sadly add some problems that I'll go into in the next section.
What I didn't like is that this felt like the most gimmicky KH to date. Dream Eaters as companions felt disappointing considering Birth By Sleep had normal temporary companions at times. The systems might be fun for some people but it felt clunky to use and adding more bloat into a game that really didn't need it. Enemy design is pretty lazy here as most Dream Eaters share the same color scheme and it rarely is hard to tell if you're fighting something different since after 10 hours I just didn't care anymore and I just focused on size at that point. The story albeit being decent sort of felt like it slogged a bit because of the drop mechanics and the two players perspectives which I can somewhat appreciate them trying to do something different but it's also kinda sad when Riku really just steals the whole damn show and Sora looks a bit lacking in brain cells here. Flowmotion being a great addition here is really easy to abuse and sort of made the game pretty easy in the end and removed almost all the platforming since you can wall jump infinitely with Flowmotion as well.
In the end of the day, it's a KH game and KH fans will probably think it's good or bad here and it depends what you like here. It just felt like it had some good ideas and some bad ideas that cancel out the enjoyment of the new good ideas. Nothing horrible but nothing impressive either here.
As with every KH game, the story and music is decent here. The worlds here are more akin to classic Disney media like The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Fantasia which was my favorite world here due to the story and music and them bring The World Ends With You characters in the first world which made the slow start much bearable. The gameplay albeit a bit simplified due to the original release of this being for a portable is still standard KH at the end of the day. Flowmotion is probably the best addition to the series this game provides but it does sadly add some problems that I'll go into in the next section.
What I didn't like is that this felt like the most gimmicky KH to date. Dream Eaters as companions felt disappointing considering Birth By Sleep had normal temporary companions at times. The systems might be fun for some people but it felt clunky to use and adding more bloat into a game that really didn't need it. Enemy design is pretty lazy here as most Dream Eaters share the same color scheme and it rarely is hard to tell if you're fighting something different since after 10 hours I just didn't care anymore and I just focused on size at that point. The story albeit being decent sort of felt like it slogged a bit because of the drop mechanics and the two players perspectives which I can somewhat appreciate them trying to do something different but it's also kinda sad when Riku really just steals the whole damn show and Sora looks a bit lacking in brain cells here. Flowmotion being a great addition here is really easy to abuse and sort of made the game pretty easy in the end and removed almost all the platforming since you can wall jump infinitely with Flowmotion as well.
In the end of the day, it's a KH game and KH fans will probably think it's good or bad here and it depends what you like here. It just felt like it had some good ideas and some bad ideas that cancel out the enjoyment of the new good ideas. Nothing horrible but nothing impressive either here.
Fun monster collection elements and fun movement held back by clunky base gameplay. The character swapping is cool though. Also it was funny seeing Tron again.
GREAT GAME GREAT TIME! Love the gameplay, it takes all the great stuff from BBS and KH2 and mixes them together to make a really great game. I don't really care about the confusing story cause I love that amazing confusing story that Squeenix has cooked up. 9/10
No me entere casi nada de la historia pero la pasé muy bien con eso de tamagochis esos raros, no soy muy útiles pero están chistosos
ballonga. vai se fuder Nomura.
The Dream Eaters mechanic took a bit of time to get used to, to the point that I can't stand the theme anymore. But the new worlds and overall story is really interesting and as charming as ever.
I've never been a big fan of the kingdom hearts combat. It's always felt to me, deflated and brain dead despite knowing that there is a certain nuanced to it. While I did enjoy Birth By Sleep's edition of it, going into more over the top modes and building on Kingdom Hearts 2 drives, I felt there was something lacking there. Surprisingly, it turns out that simply speeding up combat a bit with wall bounces and flashy movements with the environment is exactly what I wanted. The fact that Dream Drop Distance fixed this issue, and actually add a layer of exploitation with the balloon system simply just takes the cake and makes it my favorite version of Kingdom Hearts combat.
Seriously, Dream Drop Distance's combat rocks socks because of how hard it goes on flash and flare. Being able to just go zip zap all over the place and use a bunch of hard hitting spells makes combat more of a fun spectacle each time rather than a simple mash of the X button. On top of that, movement over all is improved by wall bouncing and mid air dashing; a fun little fact that air dashing improves the majority of games by simple inclusion. So not only is combat faster, but wait time and exploring are to. The fact the majority of your moves are also unlocked at the very beginning also helps improve players time overall.
Sadly I can't say they improved any of the story beats tho, as once again Kingdom Hearts is a complex mess of logic and reason that simply would be better off being ignored. Toward the end of Dream Drop Distance the story gets really weird and dives into time travel and dreams that it simply has no right in actually holding any merit. Thankfully, most of the story is more akin to self improvement and gives the worlds Sora and Riku visit a bit more meaning compared to the previous games, although changing a 1 to a 2 in meaning isn't really that big compared to being 100% worth it.
Dream Eaters are a fun little mechanic that helps Kingdom Hearts give a sort of collect them all vibe that I kinda wish they thought about more and went into more merch. Sadly, the majority of the time Dream Eaters are simply friendly enemies over having any real charm like other monster collecting games. The fact that you can literally lose one forever is a weird stress that the game adds to for seriously no reason, and it makes the whole mechanic feel like it has a catch, but overall they are a fine addition.
Aside from that, everything else is pretty much the same kind of Kingdom Hearts you may know ascetically. Worlds are bright, people say darkness a lot, and Sora is a dumb gay. While I don't think this game is needed at all to understand the lore of the series; at the least you will have a good time with the combat, and that's what I feel is worth playing this game for.
Seriously, Dream Drop Distance's combat rocks socks because of how hard it goes on flash and flare. Being able to just go zip zap all over the place and use a bunch of hard hitting spells makes combat more of a fun spectacle each time rather than a simple mash of the X button. On top of that, movement over all is improved by wall bouncing and mid air dashing; a fun little fact that air dashing improves the majority of games by simple inclusion. So not only is combat faster, but wait time and exploring are to. The fact the majority of your moves are also unlocked at the very beginning also helps improve players time overall.
Sadly I can't say they improved any of the story beats tho, as once again Kingdom Hearts is a complex mess of logic and reason that simply would be better off being ignored. Toward the end of Dream Drop Distance the story gets really weird and dives into time travel and dreams that it simply has no right in actually holding any merit. Thankfully, most of the story is more akin to self improvement and gives the worlds Sora and Riku visit a bit more meaning compared to the previous games, although changing a 1 to a 2 in meaning isn't really that big compared to being 100% worth it.
Dream Eaters are a fun little mechanic that helps Kingdom Hearts give a sort of collect them all vibe that I kinda wish they thought about more and went into more merch. Sadly, the majority of the time Dream Eaters are simply friendly enemies over having any real charm like other monster collecting games. The fact that you can literally lose one forever is a weird stress that the game adds to for seriously no reason, and it makes the whole mechanic feel like it has a catch, but overall they are a fine addition.
Aside from that, everything else is pretty much the same kind of Kingdom Hearts you may know ascetically. Worlds are bright, people say darkness a lot, and Sora is a dumb gay. While I don't think this game is needed at all to understand the lore of the series; at the least you will have a good time with the combat, and that's what I feel is worth playing this game for.
Something something Flowmotion broken baloonra something something.
2.8 Remix's only full game, this might as well have been titled 2.8 the way it's story leads directly into III's 2.9 prologue.
Gameplay is a mess, dream eaters are just as fun as they were on original hardware, the TWEWY characters are a charming take on Square's earlier use of Final Fantasy characters, and for all the jokes of the story getting really convoluted here? It's pretty easy to parse if you're playing along with an open ear and mind. Not my favorite spin-off, but not Days, Coded, or the mobile game either.
2.8 Remix's only full game, this might as well have been titled 2.8 the way it's story leads directly into III's 2.9 prologue.
Gameplay is a mess, dream eaters are just as fun as they were on original hardware, the TWEWY characters are a charming take on Square's earlier use of Final Fantasy characters, and for all the jokes of the story getting really convoluted here? It's pretty easy to parse if you're playing along with an open ear and mind. Not my favorite spin-off, but not Days, Coded, or the mobile game either.
Dream Drop Distance is really good. The gameplay and combat is flashy and fluid and it is awesome to play through a story starring Rikku and Sora, even if it is convoluted and doesn't make any sense.
The combat is pretty standard Kingdom Hearts, with commands from Birth By Sleep making a comeback (minus form changes) in a simplified form. They also add Flowmotion and Dream Eaters, which are both pretty great.
Flowmotion! DDD adds a combat trick that you execute by throwing yourself at the scenery. Depending on what you collide with, you can trigger a context sensitive special move that does a ton of damage. This makes the combat very fluid and dynamic and gives it a different feel from previous Kingdom Hearts games. You also use it for traversal when not in combat -- bouncing off walls, grinding rails, spinning on poles, etc...
Dream Drop Distance also replaces your usual companions with pokemon-esque monsters called Dream Eaters. These are varied and cute and leveling them up grant Sora and Rikku permanent abilities, sort of like commands do in Birth By Sleep. There are some tedious, optional mini-games you can use to get more out of these, but I skipped all that entirely and just leveled them up the normal way. I liked collecting these and seeing the new ones as they were introduced and gaining abilities in this way is always awesome (Final Fantasy IX again!).
The story isn't really worth talking about and hardly makes sense. It is very connected to the other games, for better and worse, and it is just... way... too much...
Luckily just playing through a game as both Rikku and Sora is pretty cool, so you can largely ignore the plot.
Both characters have to go through every world, but there are more differences between them than in Birth By Sleep. I genuinely felt like Rikku and Sora were working together here, which is pretty cool.
I really like Dream Drop Distance. It is up there with Birth By Sleep as my favorites in the series. I like how these side games take some chances with the basic Kingdom Hearts mechanics. It is a shame that the story for this series is so convoluted and this entry definitely suffers for it, but it is still worth playing if you want an action game with interesting mechanics.
The combat is pretty standard Kingdom Hearts, with commands from Birth By Sleep making a comeback (minus form changes) in a simplified form. They also add Flowmotion and Dream Eaters, which are both pretty great.
Flowmotion! DDD adds a combat trick that you execute by throwing yourself at the scenery. Depending on what you collide with, you can trigger a context sensitive special move that does a ton of damage. This makes the combat very fluid and dynamic and gives it a different feel from previous Kingdom Hearts games. You also use it for traversal when not in combat -- bouncing off walls, grinding rails, spinning on poles, etc...
Dream Drop Distance also replaces your usual companions with pokemon-esque monsters called Dream Eaters. These are varied and cute and leveling them up grant Sora and Rikku permanent abilities, sort of like commands do in Birth By Sleep. There are some tedious, optional mini-games you can use to get more out of these, but I skipped all that entirely and just leveled them up the normal way. I liked collecting these and seeing the new ones as they were introduced and gaining abilities in this way is always awesome (Final Fantasy IX again!).
The story isn't really worth talking about and hardly makes sense. It is very connected to the other games, for better and worse, and it is just... way... too much...
Luckily just playing through a game as both Rikku and Sora is pretty cool, so you can largely ignore the plot.
Both characters have to go through every world, but there are more differences between them than in Birth By Sleep. I genuinely felt like Rikku and Sora were working together here, which is pretty cool.
I really like Dream Drop Distance. It is up there with Birth By Sleep as my favorites in the series. I like how these side games take some chances with the basic Kingdom Hearts mechanics. It is a shame that the story for this series is so convoluted and this entry definitely suffers for it, but it is still worth playing if you want an action game with interesting mechanics.