I've been very slowly working through the Kingdom Hearts games, or at least the ones in the HD re-releases. This one is about Sora and Riku learning how to use the weapons they've been using for the last six games. Both are playable, and the game pushes you to switch between the two to progress their separate paths simultaneously. Dream Drop Distance is cruel enough to provide recaps of the previous games, giving you false hope of understanding what's going on this time, before ripping it away again by introducing a brand new plot mechanism in the last few hours as if everyone had always known about it. God I love Kingdom Hearts' storytelling.
It wouldn't be a Kingdom Hearts spinoff if it didn't swing for the fences with big gameplay ideas that don't work very well. Dream Drop Distance has two of these. First, there's the Flowmotion gimmick, which in theory lets you incorporate fluid parkour-like moves into combat, but in practice sees you spamming the wall-jump attack over and over because it's the only Flowmotion attack which works reliably.
Second, there's this monster-crafting gimmick where you make friendly versions of this game's enemies, the Dream Eaters, to fight as party members. There's all sorts of gauges and ability trees to max out, and you can play with and feed the monsters to boost your stats, but it all feels like busywork after a while. Unlocking branches in the ability trees is opaque, and many of the monsters have long happy-dancing animations that slow down the process of tending to them, and the playtime minigames just kinda suck, and so on. All these little annoyances add up. Maybe it feels worse because you're stuck with Dream Eaters rather than the classic Heartless monsters. I'd rather feed cakes and treats to one of those jangly knight guys from the first game than to whatever the hell a Hebby Repp is.
Apart from all that, though, this is a perfectly fine game. The Kingdom Hearts gameplay fundamentals remain sound. This one has an interesting selection of worlds, with those in the back half of the game being especially enjoyable. The boss battles are always a highlight in Kingdom Hearts - I'll give special mention to Sora's gorilla fight in Traverse Town, his one-on-one duel at the end of The Grid, and the clusterfuck Pete and Beagle Boy fights.
And, well, at the end of the day I'm not immune to stupid Disney shit. Who can resist the allure of beating up Pete with a giant key?
It wouldn't be a Kingdom Hearts spinoff if it didn't swing for the fences with big gameplay ideas that don't work very well. Dream Drop Distance has two of these. First, there's the Flowmotion gimmick, which in theory lets you incorporate fluid parkour-like moves into combat, but in practice sees you spamming the wall-jump attack over and over because it's the only Flowmotion attack which works reliably.
Second, there's this monster-crafting gimmick where you make friendly versions of this game's enemies, the Dream Eaters, to fight as party members. There's all sorts of gauges and ability trees to max out, and you can play with and feed the monsters to boost your stats, but it all feels like busywork after a while. Unlocking branches in the ability trees is opaque, and many of the monsters have long happy-dancing animations that slow down the process of tending to them, and the playtime minigames just kinda suck, and so on. All these little annoyances add up. Maybe it feels worse because you're stuck with Dream Eaters rather than the classic Heartless monsters. I'd rather feed cakes and treats to one of those jangly knight guys from the first game than to whatever the hell a Hebby Repp is.
Apart from all that, though, this is a perfectly fine game. The Kingdom Hearts gameplay fundamentals remain sound. This one has an interesting selection of worlds, with those in the back half of the game being especially enjoyable. The boss battles are always a highlight in Kingdom Hearts - I'll give special mention to Sora's gorilla fight in Traverse Town, his one-on-one duel at the end of The Grid, and the clusterfuck Pete and Beagle Boy fights.
And, well, at the end of the day I'm not immune to stupid Disney shit. Who can resist the allure of beating up Pete with a giant key?
Honestly after years of hearing this was mid I thought it was pretty good? Been awhile since I last played but I’d put it up there with KH1 or something. it’s not the series best but it’s far from its worst