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Note #003: Review #001: Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance


Terminus

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Wow, this has been sitting her for.. Forever. Been waiting for Premier Perks to get this out. Anyways here it is! (Note- this hasn't been edited since if first wrote it, right around when the perks ended last year. Anyways, enjoy!)

 

Recently, I got Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance for 3DS. And in case you didn't know, I like to write reviews for games, so I've decided to do a bit of that on my blog. Anyways, expect some more soon, I'll most likely review The Last Story next, as I'm getting that on launch day next week.

 

My overall opinion on Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance? If you're a Kingdom Hearts fan, this game is a must-have, if you're willing to drop the munny on a 3DS or have already done so. If you aren't a Kingdom Hearts fan, or haven't played any of the games, this is the perfect place to jump in. I'm going to say now that I got a 3DS last year just because of this game, so I had really high expectations. Thankfully, my expectations were met with a fun, fast adventure, but every adventure has a few bumps in the road.

 

First, I'd like to focus on the story- Basically, it's about Sora and Riku (the two main protagonists of the Kingdom Hearts franchise) going on a journey through seven worlds to become Keyblade Masters- if you're lost at this point, don't worry- the game has a Memento system, with explanatory cutscenes featuring Mickey Mouse and Yen Sid (both classic Disney cartoon characters), a glossary, and well-written summaries of the previous six Kingdom Hearts games. Of course, if you've played those six games, you're probably all caught up on the story. Anyways, the story benefits from having seen, or having some knowledge of, the source Disney movies (The Disney worlds in this game are based off the movies The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tron: Legacy, Pinocchio, Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers, and Fantasia). The overarching story connecting everything together does a good job of keeping everything in line, and it's one of the better Kingdom Hearts stories (Need I remind anyone of the awful story of Re:coded?). Normally, everything flows fine, and the game, for the most part, explains most things and fills in almost all of the story gaps, and only occasionally leaves anything unexplained. The Grid is one of those worlds where they seem to expect you to have seen the movie, and I've never seen any of the other Disney movies featured in the game, and I got a little lost at points. I'm a bit disappointed, as this usually doesn't happen within the Kingdom Hearts games. But there's one world that might confuse you more than others a bit if you aren't too familiar with the source material... Traverse Town.

 

Traverse Town is a Kingdom Hearts original world, usually filled with a bright and colorful cast of Square Enix characters. In Kingdom Hearts, it was a a town filled with faces familiar to fans of Square's Final Fantasy series. You had Aerith, Cid, Leon, Yuffie, Moogles, and a few Disney characters thrown in for good measure, such as Geppetto, Merlin, and The Nephews. Fortunately, everyone is introduced as a new character who lives here, and the Final Fantasy characters became main-ish characters, with nearly no story relation to their original games. However, In Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, Traverse Town is home to the main characters of The World Ends With You. For TWEWY fans, this is just awesome, but for people who haven't played The World Ends With You, it can be both a little bit confusing and lose a bit of it's charm. You see, this world is loaded with TWEWY meta-references and jokes, from the Light Puck to the Noise to the Reaper's Game to CAT, the list goes on and on. And you won't get a good bit of what the heck the characters are actually talking about if you haven't played The World Ends With You, because none of it is explained at all in the game.

 

Anyways, let's get on to the gameplay. Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance uses the same basic system found in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep and Kingdom Hearts: Re:coded, which is a very good thing. You press A to attack, B to jump, and X to use action commands (Magic and special attacks and such). Yes, the game suffers from a bad case of Kingdom Hearts Camera (which is worsened by use of the Circle Pad Pro), and the platforming isn't always spot-on, but the biggest focus of the game is the combat, it's all great working and streamlined, although it's streamlined to the point where the command list only shows two commands instead of three, and you can't press X while on a recharging command to skip to the next ready one, like you could do in BBS and Re:coded. It works, but not as well as in the previous two titles. You can also link with Dream Eaters, monsters that fight by your side in your party (think Final Fantasy XIII-2). I prefer Sora's links, as they cause your Dream Eaters to do super attacks that give them temporary invincibility, while Riku's links cause the Dream Eaters to disappear and Riku goes into a sort of Command Style, similar to BBS. You can also play interact with your dream eaters with the touch screen, play with them, and feed them, like a Kingdom-Hearts style Nintendogs. Also, due to this game being on the Nintendo 3DS, there has to be a touch screen gimmick, and in this game it's called Reality Shift. Reality Shift differs for each world, although it basically comes down to doing a few basic actions on the touch screen to interact with the environment and attack enemies. It's different for every world, and for the most part they are rather enjoyable. And finally, we get to Flowmotion. Let me say this: Flowmotion is amazing. With Flowmotion, you can zip around worlds at lightning-fast speeds, being able to outspeed even the fastest of bosses (sometimes). It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you start flying off walls and pull of some nice Flowmotion attacks on some enemies, it's so much fun, and you wonder how Kingdom Hearts made it this long without Flowmotion. There is also a game called "Flick Rush", in which you flick numbered cards from the bottom screen to the top screen to have your Dream Eater attack your opponent's dream eater, and the higher number wins. It's enjoyable in short bursts, but not over a long period of time, and is sadly the only multiplayer mode.

 

Next, I'll look at the presentation. The game looks pretty much the same as the Console and PSP Kingdom Hearts games, which is pretty good, some visual consistency is pretty nice. There's also a prerendered FMV opening cinematic, albeit this time with the instrumental version of Sanctuary instead of the vocal one. The 3D looks fantastic, especially in the drop sequences. There are some points where the camera might go inside something and then you see all the polygons and stuff, but that's very rare, and happens in nearly every 3D game. The music is good, although I was slightly disappointed about how non Daft Punk-ish the music in The Grid sounded, and the remixes of the songs from The World Ends With You were so great that they should have been in more than just a couple of cutscenes. The voice acting is solid, with most of the non-Kingdom Hearts characters having their original voice actors reprising their roles, and the Kingdom Hearts cast is pretty solid, too. However, I, like nearly all other kingdom hearts fans, believe that Haley Joel Osment is too old to still be voicing young Sora. He's fine as the 17-year-old Sora, but he just can't hit the 15-year-old Sora voice like he could ten years ago.

 

Here, I'll look at the extra stuff. First-print runs of the standard edition com with three AR cards, the special edition comes with all five, and after first print runs will apparently come with one. Of course, the cards are easily printable and usable from the internet, so that's no problem. Anyways, the rare Dream Eaters you get from the cards come in handy, especially R&R Seal, which has the maximum amount of HP boost abilities, plus it's a pretty good ally. Another extra feature this game has is Circle Pad Pro compatibility, which kinda works and kinda doesn't. It's fantastic for iproving locking on, as it adds ZL and ZR buttons, so it has shoulder buttons similar to a Dualshock 2, and they function exactly as they did in Kingdom Hearts. However, the main feature of the Circle Pad Pro, the extra Circle Pad, isn't implemented very well, but it seems to mostly be because it's a Kingdom Hearts game with an awful camera, just like the rest. Touching the second circle pad can cause the camera to go in all sorts of directions, and with the not-exactly-great camera following, this can spell disaster in battles and while using Flowmotion. Try it if you wan't but dont spend your money on a CPP if you are only going to use it for this game. Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil make much better use of it.

 

And finally, I'll look at the Fun Factor. Of course, this is the first Kingdom Hearts game to feature flowmotion, which is a blast to use, and is probably the most fun you can have in a videogame getting from point A to point B. The story, while not always crystal-clear, was still very entertaining, with a good bit of comedy tossed in at the right places. There's also a good bit of extra stuff to do, including the unlockable critical mode, the Secret/Special portals, the ability to transfer Dream Eaters to a new save file, secret boss and keyblades, Flick Rush Multiplayer, and StreetPass add up to a ton of extras, however, when compared to other Kingdom Hearts games, the longevity of this game is rather short. Pretty much every other KH game has things that keep you going through Level 99- insanely overpowered secret bosses, special missions, sidequests, etc. However, once you beat KH3D, the drive to hit the 99-level mark just isn't there. There's no reason to. You can beat any boss in the game with little trouble, including the harder boss rebattles, at around level 50-60, and it's not too difficult to hit that mark in under 40 hours. And, if you want to do critical mode, you might as well just stop your game right after you beat it, as the only things that carry over to critical are you Trophies and Dream Eaters, and playing through the game again might take another 30 hours, possibly 40-50 if you want everything. So, to get absolutely everything out of this game, you'll have to play around 70-80, possibly 90 hours, tops. However, for nearly every other KH game, I've played way past the 100 hour mark, and I still have things to do. I have the scores in the Paradox Battles in KH2, I have a couple holo-missions left in Days, and I still need the Ultima Weapon in Kingdom Hearts, Birth by Sleep, and Re:coded. However, KH3D comes out very short in the longevity section. It's still a blast to play, but the fun won't last as long as other Kingdom Hearts titles.

 

So, I've covered pretty much everything. Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance is a must-have for fans who are willing to buy or already own a 3DS, and also for people who want to get into Kingdom Hearts. It's fun and fast-paced, and you'll most likely be enjoying it too much to notice the camera and platforming issues. Even with it's shorter longevity than other Kingdom Hearts titles, it's still the best portable Kingdom Hearts title, ranking up there with the two numbered games in terms of Story and Gameplay. It's a fantastic Action-RPG experience that you shouldn't be hesitant to dive right into.

 

THE FINAL SCORES

 

Story:

+ It manages to take all the Kingdom Hearts lore and place it in a neat and organized Memento system and Glossary, which makes it perfect for newcomers, returning fans, or KH fanatics.

+ The story makes sense at the end, and there are almost no plotholes, if any. It's one of the best to date.

- Some things can be confusing if you aren't familiar with the source material. But that's what Wikipedia's for.

Story Rating: 8/10

 

Gameplay:

+ Very solid combat, like always.

+ Flowmotion is the best addition to Kingdom Hearts since they replaced Sora's original chainsaw with a Keyblade in the planning stages of Kingdom Hearts.

- It suffers from the same camera and platforming issues that have plagued the series from the beginning. But you'll be having too much fun to notice.

- Flick Rush works, but it's rather uninteresting, and it's the only multiplayer mode.

Gameplay Rating: 8.5/10

 

Presentation:

+ Kingdom Hearts has had a constant visual style since the beginning, and we finally see the series on a Nintendo handheld the way it's supposed to look.

+ Over half the time I played the game, I played it in 3D, and the 3D looks great.

- The sound is usually pretty good, but there are some tracks that should have been used more and some that didn't sound entirely right. Also, Haley Joel Osment can't voice younger Sora anymore.

Presentation Rating: 8.5/10

 

Extra Features:

+ Ar Cards provide useful dream eaters.

+ You can print AR cards off the internet.

- You don't want to play this game with the circle pad pro. (However, I won't count that against the score as the CPP is sold separately. If I did, this section would get a 3/10.)

Extra Features Rating: 8/10

 

Fun Factor:

+ Did I say that Flowmotion is AMAZING?!?

+ The story, while being very good, is also very entertaining (Especially when Sora turns around at the end of the game).

+ The unlockable critical mode, ability to battle bosses again, ability to transfer Dream Eaters to a new save file, and StreetPass add up to a ton of extras. Oh, and did I mention there are Trophies?

- Even with all the extra stuff mentioned above, the longevity of the other KH games isn't there.

- Some of the boss battles can be pretty hard (Rinzler). But hey, what fun is a game without a challenge?

Fun Factor Rating: 9/10

 

TOTAL RATING: 42/50

 

Anyways, what did you think of the review? Do you like my format? I'd like to read your thoughts and comments, because I'll be doing more of this in the future!

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