Summer of Kingdom Hearts – Part 7 – Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD Review

For those of you who have been enjoying my “Summer of Kingdom Hearts” series, you’ll know that things have been a bit rough in my last few reviews. Re: Coded nearly broke me, and it was just a “cutscene game.” Needless to say, I needed something to make things better, and thankfully, the title that I had been looking forward to the most in this second batch made me happy…for the most part. This Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD Review will get a better score than the last few games, but it does still have flaws I must point out.

The irony of this game for me is that I DID play this one before on the Nintendo 3DS. However, due to a certain set of difficulty spikes near the end of the game, I never beat it. I did beat it this time, though, which makes me excited for what comes next in the line…even if it gets EVEN MORE CONVOLUTED! Hint: I know it’ll get more complicated.

So, let’s start my Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD Review by doing a small recap. After the events of KH2 and Coded, Sora and Riku join Mickey at Master Yen Sid’s tower to learn about what must be done next to stop the scheming Master Xehanort. Yen Sid decides to give them a special “Mark of Mastery” test, where they’ll go into the “sleeping worlds” that haven’t been awakened after being consumed by darkness to help bring them back to life.

Easily, one of the best parts about this title is that, once again, you’ll play as Sora AND Riku in separate but connected storylines. The twist is that, unlike Chain of Memories, you’ll be paying them concurrently due to the “Drop” system. Basically, you can switch between the two at whatever point you want to get bonuses for the other or when your gauge runs out. It’s a little tricky to understand at first, but once you realize the importance of “Drop Me Nots,” you’ll be fine and can do each storyline without fear of “dropping when you don’t want to.”

Regardless, like Birth By Sleep, you’ll basically be doing “halves to a whole” within the storylines, which works rather well more times than not. It allows the worlds to get fleshed out in key ways while not retreading ground. We even get some key returns, like with Traverse Town (where we get the epic The World Ends With You storyline!!!!) and the return of Monstro.

Geeking out for a moment, it was so awesome back in the day hearing that TWEWY (which is one of my favorite franchises ever!) was going to be in Dream Drop Distance, and all these years later, seeing Neku, Shiki, Beat, Rhyme and even Joshua was a blast. Not to mention, hearing the classic music of the first game within Traverse Town was dope. That wasn’t the only world I enjoyed, though, as Tron Legacy (which I also loved) was cool to see, as well as the Three Musketeers world, Hunchback of Notre Dame and others stood out.

Another thing I must note is that this game really harped on why it was a key piece of KH lore, as this game directly sets up KH3 in numerous big ways, including highlighting the story importance of Birth By Sleep (via Ventus and Xehanort specifically) while also teasing the “final battle to come.” So, while I have admitted there were “games you could skip” in this collection…this isn’t one of them.

As for the gameplay, the title once again embraces the BBS system of using sleights and magic over just slowly building up your abilities like in KH2. For whatever reason, I felt it worked better here than in that game. However, there were a couple of key elements in the mechanics that were brand new, for better and for worse.

The first and arguably most important is that of the Dream Eaters. Basically, they were the Kingdom Hearts version of Pokemon. You would collect certain items and then “create them” to fight beside you in battles. You could learn new skills and commands with them by building bonds with them, and over time, you get access to newer and arguably more powerful ones.

The second new addition was “Flow Motion,” a special kind of attack that has you bouncing off of walls, swinging around polls, throwing large enemies around, and more. It’s fast and furious, but if you use it properly, you can do lots of damage without getting hit yourself.

Finally, there were “Reality Shifts.” These were special attacks that would have you do a kind of mini-game or action to deliver certain special attacks to foes.

In all honesty, only some of this felt meaningful to the game. The Reality Shifts were fine at times, while others felt hard to control or annoying to do repeatedly. As noted, Flow Motion was really hard to control, and it was REALLY easy to launch yourself somewhere you didn’t want to be. Finally, the Dream Eaters didn’t feel like they added much to combat at times, and their AIs weren’t exactly the brightest of the bunch. Plus, if you wanted to get the “cool-looking ones,” you REALLY needed to hope you got the right parts, or were willing to go broke to buy the right ones…which I had to do near the end.

The reason I feel this was a misstep (regarding Dream Eaters) is that there were some really cool companions we could’ve had in the game like The World Ends With You crew, Quorra from Tron Legacy and even Fantasia Mickey! Yet, instead, we got them, and I’m sad about that.

Another key thing I must admit in my Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD Review is that while I absolutely loved how there were divided tales for Riku and Sora again, they didn’t exactly feel balanced at times, and that went right up to the game’s ending.

For example, in certain worlds, you could tell that equal thought was put into who Sora and Riku would meet and fight. Other times, it felt like Riku was just (setting things up) for Sora, including in the Three Musketeers world, where Riku spent all of his time…finding a lever. Or, in the second act of Traverse Town where he just chased a monster but didn’t fight anything meaningful. Then, in a reverse, when you get to the game’s final stages, Riku has a multi-part boss fight against Ansem and then has to fight a version of Ventus, while Sora…just fights Xenmas once. It felt really imbalanced, especially given the large number of cutscenes that filled up that section on both sides.

Just as important, there were some noticeable plot holes in some of the game’s stories, including how certain characters got to where they were in a short period of time or why Maleficent was bent on getting certain “data” when she already said she was after a different “book” entirely. Plus, some of the last worlds, including the one for Fantasia, didn’t feel as “momentous” as it likely should’ve been. Oh, and there were times they just “cut to something else” instead of explaining what just happened or why someone was doing something. You know, like when Axel/Lea suddenly gets his keyblade, or Sora deciding to go back into the dream world…just to thank the Dream Eaters… Yeah…okay…

Also, as mentioned before, there are some serious difficulty spikes at times, including in some of the last boss fights. Not to mention, this is one of the shorter games in the series. I beat it in about 14 hours, which surprised me.

Even still, I must note that my Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD Review will end on a positive note, because it was a positive game! The gameplay is fun overall, and I enjoyed most of the story, and it makes me hyped for what’s coming next. So, I’ll just hope that things continue to be fun as I work my way to KH3!

Next up: Kingdom Hearts X.